“My sister who lives off El Matador in Gilroy still has her water turned on after not paying her bill for more than a year. I live on First Street and stopped paying my water bill because I lost my job, and after three months my water was turned off. Why I am I being discriminated against?”
Red Phone: Dear All Dried Up, The reason for the discrepancies in the billing is because you get your water from the City of Gilroy, while your sister, who lives near Hecker Pass, gets water from another source, said David Stubchaer, Gilroy operations director. Perhaps your sister’s water provider hasn’t realized she hasn’t been paying for her share of the water she uses. Or maybe they have a different billing policy than Gilroy does.
It is unfortunate that you lost your water service because you weren’t able to pay your bill, but water is not free and has to be paid for somehow, Stubchaer said.
“The city has real operations and maintenance costs that it must pay, many of which are based on the amount of water used,” he said. “Like most utilities do, the city will shut off service to customers that don’t pay their bill as this is not a free service.”
He added it is generally not a good practice to ignore a water bill and hope no one notices that it is not being paid.
Hope this helps, good caller. You may want to encourage your sister to pay up.
