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?

URGENT: Two Important County Meetings Today

Custom Exempt Meat Cutting Ordinance on the planning commission agenda

The Weber County Commissioners will hold a regular commission meeting in the
Commission Chambers of the Weber Center,
2380 Washington Boulevard, Ogden, Utah,
at 10:00 a.m. on
Tuesday, the 24th day of April 2012.

Here is the entire agenda.

Here are some items of particular interest to Ogden Valley residents:

 E. Action

1. Request for consideration and/or action on a request for final approval of The Summit at Ski Lake No. 11 including a Subdivision Improvement Agreement in the amount of $108,350.83 and a Survey Monumentation Improvement Agreement in the amount of $700.
Presenter: Sean Wilkinson

 F. Public hearing
1. Motion to adjourn public meeting and convene public hearing.
2. Public hearing for consideration and/or action on staff amendments to the Weber County Zoning Ordinance Chapter 1 (General Provisions), Chapter 9-A (Shoreline Zone (S-1), Chapter 23 (Supplementary and Qualifying Regulations), Chapter 23 (Supplementary and Qualifying Regulations), Chapter 24(Parking and Loading Space, Vehicle Traffic and Access Regulations), Chapter 29 (Board of Adjustment), Chapter 31 (Administration), and Chapter 36-B (Hillside Development Review Procedures and Standards) regarding the Weber County Board of Adjustment.
Presenter: Sean Wilkinson
3. Motion to adjourn public hearing and reconvene public meeting.
4. Action on public hearing.

 The next important meeting is:

The Ogden Valley Planning Commission Meeting
Weber County Commission Chambers, Weber Center (2380 Washington Blvd).
The meeting will begin at 5:00 p.m.
April 24, 2012


Here is the entire agenda.

Here are some items of particular interest:

2. Petitions, Applications, and Public Hearings:

• New Business:

2.1. ZTA 2012-05 Zoning Text Amendment ZTA 2012-05 amending Chapter 5B (Agricultural Valley AV-3) Zone Section 5B-3 Permitted Uses Requiring Five (5) Acres Minimum Lot Area to allow Custom Exempt Meat Cutting including wild game and amend Chapter 1 (General Provisions) by adding a new definition of Custom Exempt Meat Cutting.

3. Public Comments:

4. Planning Commissioner’s Remarks:

Custom Exempt Meat Cutting?   What exactly does that mean?

You may read the planning commissioner packet here.

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?

Two Important Posts!

Heliport for Red Moose Lodge is denied

Today the Weber County Commission by a vote of 3 to 0 sustained the decision of the Ogden Valley Planning Commission to deny the appeal of the Heliport at Red Moose Lodge.

During the public input on this issue, the three County Commissioners made it clear that while they all supported the idea of a Heliport somewhere in Ogden Valley if an ideal location could be found, they did not support the Heliport in the Eden area at Red Moose Lodge.

It was noted by one of the Commissioners that many flights have been made over the years from Ogden Valley without having the proper zoning and permits in place for such flights.

It was also noted by the Commissioners, that under existing Resort zoning ordinances, flights from Snow Basin are only allowed within the boundaries of the Snow Basin Resort.

A Hold is placed on the establishment of an Administrative Control Board for the Ski Lake Special Service District.

The Weber County Commission voted unanimously to place the Ski Lake sewer issue on hold pending additional information and research into the 2004 management agreement between Mountain Sewer and Weber County. In addition, the Commissioners agreed to consider the request by the Mountain Sewer user’s group of a complete, independent financial audit of the books of Mountain Sewer prior to any establishment of a user’s Administrative Control Board.

Important Weber County Commission Meeting Tuesday - Heliport and Ski Lake Special District

Heliport and Ski Lake Special Service District on the agenda.


Another important meeting is scheduled for Tuesday:


Commission Chambers of the Weber Center
2380 Washington Boulevard, Ogden, Utah
at 10:00 a.m. 
Tuesday, the 5th day of April 2011.

Click here to view the agenda 


We will highlight two important items:

2.           Request for approval of a resolution of the Board of Commissioners of Weber County establishing an Administrative Control Board for the Ski Lake Special Service District.

              Presenter: Commissioner Zogmaister

4.           Consideration and/or action on an appeal of the Ogden Valley Planning Commission decision denying a conditional use permit (CUP 2010-04) for a private heliport located at the Red Moose Lodge in Eden, located at 2547 North Valley Junction Drive.

              Presenter: Ben Hatfield

Our humble readers will remember some issues related to the Ski Lake Sewer.  For more details, search the Ogden Valley Forum for "ski lake" and "Ron Catanzero" using the search box on the right sidebar.  [Blogmeister's note: we would typically provide a simple to use link to the search item, but we are posting from a country that has banned access to the Forum.  Thus, you will have to do some of your own simple research.]

As for the heliport issue, we suggest you do the same to get up to speed on the issue - search "heliport" using the search box on the right side bar.

Regular readers will recall this issue has been ongoing for the last two ski seasons.  After a falling out with Powder Mountain, where Diamond Peaks Heli-sking had operated for years, the ski helicopter operator was flying out of the Red Moose Lodge during the 2009-10 ski season without the county required permits and approvals.  The county ordinance official gave the operators a cease and desist order but County Commissioner Jan Zogmaister exercised a rarely used emergency action to allow Diamond Peaks to continue through the 2010 ski season.

The petitioners recently went before the Ogden Valley Planning Commission to request a conditional use permit (CUP 2010-04) for a private heliport located at the Red Moose Lodge in Eden.  The request was ultimately denied and the petitioners have appealed to the County Commissioners.


It should be noted that Diamond Peaks has been operating out of Snowbasin this year, so the denial has not prevented Diamond Peaks from flying - it has only stopped them from flying out of the Red Moose Lodge Property.  In fact, from the Facebook Page "Keep Diamond Peaks Heli-Ski Adventures in the Ogden Valley," this was posted on March 16, 2011:

Diamond Peaks Heli-Ski Adventures is proud to say that we are now operating out of Snowbasin. They have treated us very well and we look forward to excellent mutual business together for the remainder of the season and seasons to come.

We at the forum applaud this new development and feel this is a win win situation for all - Diamond Peaks, Snowbasin, their guests and Ogden Valley residents.

We have heard rumors that the out of state owner of the Red Moose Lodge has the property for sale on the real estate market.  The last thing Ogden Valley needs is another precedence being set.  In this case, a heliport that would transfer and be grandfathered to the new owner, even though the original user (Diamond Peaks) has moved on and has properly found a new suitor.  Congratulations to Diamond Peaks.


Your attendance at the Tuesday meeting is crucial, but it is even more important that you contact the commissioners now to provide them input on these important issues.  If you wait to contact them on Tuesday, it will be too late.


We have included the email addresses for the County Commissioners.  Now it's time to send them a clear message.
Craig Dearden cdearden@co.weber.ut.us
Jan Zogmaister jzogmaister@co.weber.ut.us
Kerry Gibson kgibson@co.weber.ut.us

The Rest of The Story on Last Night's Flooding - Raw Sewage Floods Lakeside Condos

This is one of several important posts today - be sure to scroll down to review all

If anyone in Ogden Valley has wondered why there is a strange odor around the Ski Lake area the word on the street is that it is coming from raw sewage dumps and overflows from the Mountain Sewer Corp. owned by Mr. Ron Catanzaro.

The facts appear to be that some of the sewage pumping equipment has not been working properly at the Lakeside Village Town homes for several years and Mountain Sewer has decided rather than to fix the pumps, they would instead pump the excess sewage from the town homes into tanker trucks, then move it to a private community in the same area and dump it in to their sewer manholes. When some of the neighbors in the private community witnessed this they questioned Mr. Catanzaro’s reasoning since the sewage could be dumped directly into his company’s sewer ponds along Old Snow Basin Road and not into sewers within the private community.

While Mountain Sewer does not seem to see anything wrong with trespassing on private property and dumping raw sewage in a private community, think how any of us would react if a company dumped raw sewage from other locations into the sewers on your street.

All of this resulted in a Ski Lake Special Service District meeting on Tuesday, January 25th with the County Commissioners to allow for public input about Mountain Sewer Corp. problems and other related items on the District’s agenda for the day.

Following the January, 2011 meeting of the Ski Lake Special Service District many of the Mountain Sewer users wrote a letter to the Weber County Commissioners to again outline these problems and ask the Commissioners to resolve these problems by bringing Mountain Sewer into operational compliance. It was revealed that Mountain Sewer never has had a operator’s permit as required by the State. There has been no reply from the County Commissioners on this letter.

The Weber County Commission as the body politic has oversight responsibility for the Ski Lake Special Service District and Mountain Sewer. They are responsible for oversight of Mountain Sewer Corp.’s operation. It appears that Weber County has been seriously remiss in their oversight responsibility.

Last night, March 16th, the sewage pumps at the Lakeside Village complex were not able to handle the sewage flow once again and numerous Town homes were flooded with sewage waste. It is a deplorable situation that requires immediate action from our County Commissioners.

For years, some operators of sewage systems have gamed the system by intentionally interconnecting storm and sanitary sewer systems, resulting in sanitary sewage being diverted to storm sewers and, untreated, into public waters. The less sewage you treat, the cheaper it is. We don’t know for sure that such a condition exists with Mountain Sewer, but we do know that massive amounts of storm water wound up in the Mountain Sewer sanitary system. Could it have been through an intentional interconnection?

The other possibilities, of course, are bad design or malfunction, or a combination of the two. In any case, storm water and sewage are not supposed to intermix, and they sure did, here, and fifteen condo owners and renters are up to their ankles in raw sewage as a result.

In addition to the dumping of raw sewage and an ineffective pumping system, Mountain Sewer appears to have bookkeeping problems. It is well know among the residents served by Mountain Sewer that Mr. Catanzaro has failed to collect from several property owners sewer connection fees regulated by the State. It is rumored that he himself has failed to pay these same fees on properties that he owned. What is ironic about all this is that Mr. Catanzaro pleads that he has no money to make the necessary repairs to his pumping equipment and needs a rate increase to cover his operation costs while he is not collecting the basic fees and payments from everyone on his system.

In addition, it has come to light that Mr. Catanzaro offered cut rate hookup fees for water and sewer to prospective lot buyers in order to boost his lot sales. The problem with this offer is that it is not legal to reduce the price of water and sewer hookups for anyone when these fees are regulated by the State of Utah. Anyone that has received this “deal” from Mr. Catanzaro should verify that he made up the difference on the “cut rates” and deposited the full amount in the Mountain Sewer accounts. If this has not been done, those lot owners may have to pay the difference to Mountain Sewer at a later date. The State Of Utah has contacted Mr. Catanzaro on this issue.

While the media was on site last night, they seemingly missed the real story of Raw Sewage and the faulty pumps.

Storm causing flooding in Weber, Morgan counties - ksl.com

And from this morning's Standard Examiner:

Rain Causes Flooding in Weber, Morgan

Weber County Commission Meeting Tuesday - Summit @ Ski Lake up for Approval

Zogmaister campaign donor/ tax evader Ron Catanzero doesn't waste any time in requesting approval of another phase at Ski Lake

We noticed some interesting items on the Pre Christmas Weber county commission meeting agenda.  The important meeting will be:

Commission Chambers of the Weber Center,
2380 Washington Boulevard, Ogden, Utah,
commencing at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, the 21st day of December 2010.

Here is an excerpt from the agenda:

 E. Action Items

2. Request for approval of Phase 11 Summit at Ski Lake.
Presenter: Ron Cantanzaro
3. Request for consideration and/or action on an agreement between Ski Lake Corporation, Mountain Sewer Corporation, and Weber County regarding a time extension for the Chalets at Ski Lake and The Summit at Ski Lake.
Presenter: Sean Wilkinson

Of particular interest is the fact that Mr. Catanzero has a long history of leaving the citizen's of Weber County holding the bag for his financial difficulties.  More interesting is the fact that the County continues to entertain Mr. Catanzero's requests.

Click here to view the delinquent history of one subject parcel - there are many more delinquent properties.  
Ultimately, these delinquent taxes were apparently paid by Celtic Bank following foreclosure of the subject property.

For more, click here to view the 2009 delinquent tax list.  They are listed alphabetically so scroll down to see the many listings for "Catanzero" and "Ski Lake corporation."

It would appear that Ron is anxious to get on the agenda before Commissioner Bischoff retires.  Many will remember the large "Bischoff for County commission" signs plastered on several of Catanzero's properties during Bischoff's last campaign.

Perhaps there are some unpaid favors in store for Mr. Catanzero?