Lakeview Water Corporation Overcharging Customers

Hot news on the street in Ogden Valley.  The word is that Lakeview Water Corporation serving the Ski Lake area has been overcharging their customers for water connection fees for years. 

The information we have been able to gather is that the previous owner of Lakeview Water overcharged most, if not all of the customers of Lakeview Water $500 each above the approved tariff (rate) for water connection fees than was approved by the Public Service Commission (PSC).

The overcharges may go back to the early years of the Lakeside Village development. 

The information we have obtained is that the PSC approved water connection fee for each customer was $1,000 until January 2008, when the fee was increased in a rate case to $3,500 for each customer.  Some customers told us their bills for the connection fees reflected $1,500 up to the rate increase in 2008 and others said it was $4,000 after January 2008.  Each customer noted the $500 overcharge on his or her connection fee.

The actual amount of customers affected is not known at this time, but Lakeview Water Corporation serves over 200 customers.  That indicates that the overcharges could amount to more than $100,000 dollars. 

Some Lakeview Water customers we spoke to say they noted their own overcharges recently and requested a refund from the new owner of Lakeview Water. They said they were either ignored or told that the statute of limitations had expired and Lakeview Water did not have to refund the money. The new owner is squealing like a mashed cat about the refund requests from his customers.  

What is known is the new owner of Lakeview Water and Mountain Sewer purchased the two corporations, at a bargain basement price and that that purchase included 66 lots in the Ski Lake area. Those 66 lots alone are worth about $8,250,000 at $125,000 per lot. This is also the same guy that is asking for a $1,300 special assessment from each customer in order to recoup the money to pay for employees salaries at Mountain Sewer that the previous owner did not pay before the sale. This special assessment is in addition to the 159% increase in the sewer fees

To summarize, the new owner of Mountain Sewer and Lakeview Water does not want to return the money from overcharged customers from the previous owner, but he wants those same customers to pay for the unpaid bills that were left behind by the same previous owner. Does that sound greedy or what?

Alabama county cuts deal of debt

We spotted an article in the September 30, 2011 issue of “The Week,” a national magazine, which reminds us of Ogden Valley's own Mountain Valley sewer fiasco.

Jefferson County, Ala., has avoided “what could have been the 
biggest municipal bankruptcy filing in American history,” said Mary Williams Walsh in The New York Times.  Officials in the county, which includes Birmingham, have reached a deal to restructure $ 3 billion in debt, which grew out of a sewer system revamp plagued by flawed accounting and corruption. Under the proposal, the county’s Wall Street creditors would forgive about $ 1 billion of the debt, but residents would face higher bills for sewer service.

Does this sound familiar?

Lakeview Water and Mountain Sewer owner bugs out under investigation pressure.

It was learned recently from Melvin Smith, Ron Catanzaro’s attorney

in the Ogden area, that Catanzaro has left the State of Utah for Nevada.

As reported in this blog, Mountain Sewer Company has been the subject of a Formal Complaint and investigation by the Utah Public Service Commission (PSC) regarding operating problems and billing questions regarding both Mountain Sewer and Lakeview Water Corporations.

Our information is that Catanzaro turned over most or all of his assets to the owner of A-1 pumping pending approval of the Public Service Commission. These assets include both Mountain Sewer and Lakeview Water Corporations. Word on the street is that Mountain Sewer owed A-1 pumping and other vendors substantial unpaid bills for services.

At the pre hearing conference on July 19th the Public Service Commission law judge indicated that a complete audit of Mountain Sewer as requested by the complainants would be one of the first orders of business, and the parties would reconvene in about a month to to discuss the audit results and set the date for the Formal Hearing. It appears that Mr. Catanzaro did not want to face the PSC audit results and examination of his operating procedures detailed in the formal complaint, so he decided to sell out and leave the area.

An initial meeting between the prospective new owner of Mountain Sewer and Lakeview Water corporations and the Ad hoc committee of utility users that filed the formal complaint against Mountain Sewer was held on July 28th. The purpose was to air out some particulars about the sale and transfer of assets and responsibilities and to have some utility customers meet the new owner so they could get to know each other. The new owner committed to working with the users to resolve current outstanding issues and he promised to stay in communication with the utility users on the operations and plans for the future for both corporations. A check with the PSC staff indicated the normal timeframe for approval of an uncontested sale of a PSC regulated company is from 45 to 60 days.

It is not clear as of this writing how this transfer of assets will affect the pending PSC formal complaint or what the reaction of the possible sale is from the Weber County Commissioners who have been the body politic for oversight for Mountain Sewer for many years.

Update on Lakeview Water and Mountain Sewer

A correction to the initial post: The new owner of Mountain Sewer and Lakeview Water is the father of the owner of A-1 Pumping.

Pre Hearing Conference - Mountain Sewer Formal Complaint

On Tuesday, July 19, 2011, the Public Service Commission Administrative Law Judge, David Clark, conducted a pre hearing conference to lay out the  procedures regarding the Formal PSC Complaint filed by a group of Ogden Valley residents served by Mountain Sewer Corporation.

Judge Clark stated that since there would soon be a request from Mountain Sewer for a rate increase, and a possible sale of Mr. Catanzaro’s water and sewer properties, the complainants request for a complete, independent audit of the utility's accounting books and operating systems by the PSC staff will be one of the first items to be addressed.

When the audit of Mountain Sewer is completed, all parties will again meet to discuss the results of the audit and determine the next step in the complaint process.

The Weber County Commission, who is the designated body politic for Mountain Sewer, chose not to send a representative to the conference today, but sent a letter to the Administrative Law Judge stating their position regarding their responsibilities for oversight of Mountain Sewer.

The Ogden Valley Forum feels the non-participation by Weber County is a disservice to Mountain Sewer customers, especially those in the Lakeside Village Town homes, and is a continuation of Weber County’s inconsistent oversight record regarding Mountain Sewer operational problems. Many of the Lakeside Village town home owners have suffered multiple sewage flooding incidents (the latest March 16, 2011) due to the functional problems of Mountain Sewer’s lift pumps. These town home owners have found a mixture of storm water with raw sewage in their homes during numerous flooding incidents dating back several years.

The Forum urges the Weber County Commissioners to step up and fulfill their responsibilities regarding Mountain Sewer instead of pushing the problems off for future meetings of the Special Service District  board.

Sewer complaint filed by owners of Huntsville condos

The Mountain Sewer Corp. fiasco has made it to the pages of the Standard Examiner. Our faithful readers will remember this ongoing saga which has involved questionable billing practices, dumping raw sewage from a faulty system into the man hole of another sewer system and even raw sewage flooding the Lakeside Condos.

Read Monday's Standard article by clicking the link below:

Sewer complaint filed by owners of Huntsville condos

For more history of the Mountain Sewer Corp., click here.


From Monday's Scott Schwebke article:

Several Huntsville-area residents have filed a complaint with the Utah Public Service Commission contending Mountain Sewer Corp. failed to prevent raw sewage from entering 15 condominiums in Lakeside Village during a flood.

The article goes on to state:

The complainants are asking the Public Service Commission to inspect Mountain Sewer to prevent a recurrence of problems that happened the night of March 16.
They have also requested that the Public Service Commission audit Mountain Sewer's financial records to determine if charges to customers and prospective customers have been proper and uniform.

The complaint isn't an attempt to crucify Mountain Sewer or its owner, Ronald Catanzaro, Zini said. "All we really want is a sewer company that functions properly and bills properly," he said.

Mountain Sewer does an outstanding job serving Huntsville-area residents, said Catanzaro, who denied the allegations contained in the complaint. "I think we have been successful," he said.

Ross Hudson, a complaint specialist with the state Division of Public Utilities, said he will recommend that the Public Service Commission hold a hearing on the complaint. He declined to provide the Standard-Examiner with information regarding the grievance. However, Zini gave the newspaper a copy of the complaint and noted that Mountain Sewer serves about 125 customers in Lakeside Village, The Summit at Ski Lake and Edgewater Chalets.

Mountain Sewer and Lakeview Water Corp. in Huntsville, also owned by Catanzaro, are scheduled to be sold at a tax auction on May 26, according to the Weber County Treasurer's Office. Catanzaro owes a total of $1,722 for Mountain Sewer and $3,222 for Lakeview Water for unpaid property taxes from 2006 to 2010, records indicate.
Catanzaro said he will pay the bill this week.

What do our Ogden Valley Faithful have to say about this stinky mess?