Hold on to your wallet - here comes Levy-son

Ace, please pay more attention to your bills. Yes it says South Orange Village Water , but that is a DBA becuase the village oversees the EOWC. That is also not who you are paying, it is just the address they are sending the bills from (theoretically, but not really)

 If you look at the payment portion of your bill it is going to East Orange Water

HEY FOLKS,

Don't be too harsh on Levison.  After all, you elected him twice and will do so again next month.  I am all for a write in campaign for anyone other than him, Mark Rosner, and Deborah Davis Ford.  How about Rob Sandow, Scott Greenstein and Alisa Aronson?

Definitely Rob Sandow. I am even considering writing in an Inanimate Carbon Rod.

Scott , never noticed that part on the remit. It wasn't there years ago! I got used to making the checks out the same way, they cash them.  You can, or used to be able to pay the bill at village hall also? I cant pay my garbage bill there. So its not unreasonable to think that its the same entity.  Its not as cut and dry as you make it seem.  In fact , its very confusing. Sent you pm, please tell me if you get it. Its timely,  but I don't know if I got it right. 

As part of our contract with EOWC the Village provides a bill paying service at the Village Hall Tax Collector office for which the Village receives a fee from EOWC.  The Tax collector has access to the EOWC billing system for payment acceptance and issuance of a receipt.

EOWC also provides for a fee ($2.00 per transaction) an online payment function (Credit Card or Check - ACH).

Howard, can you explain why you guys approved an 8% increase to a thieving water company that cost the village lots of money and wont be around after next year?

Scott,

  Did you read the actual first post in this thread?  Is not the 8% increase actually in the South Orange portion of the bill, and not the EOWC portion.  

I only see one line item in my bill, nothing specific to EOWC or SO. So what is the 8% increasing?  And yes I read the first post. Are you saying that we are not paying this increase, but South Orange is, and thus will need to raise taxes to cover the increase?  If so, my argument still stands in that EOWC regularly waited to respond to water main breaks after hours and thus charged emergency repair rates. Most of these were caused by their negligence of turning off and on different feeds to cover up the contamination.

It does not go to EOWC but to the Village Water Utility.  These funds are dedicated to the Water infrastructure.  As part of the transition from EOWC the Village has is faced with additional expenses that need to be covered. 

Thank you - that makes sense. However, since the transition is theoretically a one time thing, once the transition is completed at the end on 2016, will the 8% increase be removed?

If funds are dedicated to the water infrastructure please keep collecting them and use them for that purpose. Cities everywhere have crumbling infrastructures and I'd like to fix ours instead of whining about it, especially because if I recall correctly we will still own the infrastructure after we switch suppliers.

Also Howard, what happened to not raising rates: http://villagegreennj.com/towns/government/njaw-bridge-troubled-south-orange-water/

“We do believe we will be able to deliver water at a lower rate than the EOWC,” said Lewis.

OK, so im not totally crazy here, let me try to get this straight. As the bill contains 3 elements, eo water authority, south orange village water , and Newark. We pay east orange for water and maintenance, Newark for extra water and we collect additional funds for infrastructure. The bill goes to east orange water then they send money back to the south orange water authority for infrastructure and Newark for water. So the south orange water authority is a south orange entity that over sees the whole process, even though the billing is done through east orange from a south orange address and occasionally collected through south orange directly through a different agreement which we in turn collect a fee for. Sounds simple enough for the average taxpayer to understand.

Ace11 - Bingo - I think they do this on purpose to make it easier to pull the wool over out eyes.

It's almost enough to make one go crazy and then take over an Air Force base and start World War III...

I give credit to Mr. Levinson for posting on this thread even after many people have resorted to mocking and sarcasm instead of dialogue...and that includes the title of the thread.  But this seems to be my pet peeve about a number of threads.  Maybe it's just me.

Carry on.

It's called truth in advertising.  Politicians love to make claims about every alleged savings they create, but they conveniently neglect to mention the tax and fee increases, support for no-bid contracts, support for no-show contracts or support for corrupt water vendors.

jeffl said:

I give credit to Mr. Levinson for posting on this thread even after many people have resorted to mocking and sarcasm instead of dialogue...and that includes the title of the thread.  But this seems to be my pet peeve about a number of threads.  Maybe it's just me.

Carry on.

 This is the Internet.  It's what people do here.

qrysdonnell said:

jeffl said:

I give credit to Mr. Levinson for posting on this thread even after many people have resorted to mocking and sarcasm instead of dialogue...and that includes the title of the thread.  But this seems to be my pet peeve about a number of threads.  Maybe it's just me.

Carry on.

 This is the Internet.  It's what people do here.

 Yup.

michaelgoldberg 

I think these rate changes were stated in public including at the last BOT meeting, discussions at both the Finance Committee meeting and the Budget workshop - nothing hidden.

We have discussed purchasing in the past - there are specific rules and approvals that are followed - if you want I  can retrieve the document I provide previously outlining municipal purchasing law.

Lastly, please tell me when I ever supported EOWC.

Howard, thank you for your responses. With regard to foloiwng specific rules and approvals, we all know the the current VP has not done that, as can be seen by his reimbursement requests for 2 different project management applications. 

The expenditures were for month to month use of products that were being prototype tested on applicability to implementing a project management system.  These vendors do not accept Purchase Orders for these trials, only credit cards.

We recognized the use of personal credit cards to be an issue and have (by review of the Bills List, by our CFO, and discussed at the Finance Committee) developed a solution which resulted in passage of a resolution at the last BOT meeting:

P-Card: http://southorange.no-ip.org/weblink8/0/doc/135244/Page1.aspx

Except both of those products have free trials. And both of those products have been used by Veracity media for a long time.

jeffl said:

I give credit to Mr. Levinson for posting on this thread even after many people have resorted to mocking and sarcasm instead of dialogue...and that includes the title of the thread.  But this seems to be my pet peeve about a number of threads.  Maybe it's just me.

 It's not just you. I concur. Debate and discussion are healthy and good for our Village. The rest of it is not.

Scott, that is understood but there are more individuals using the product(s) than just Alex.

Basecamp is used by a number of volunteer committees.

Wrike was being tested by Alex, Barry, Adam and Steve Rother and now will be used for project management by all Department heads. 

Thank you Howard. But you do see my point. The two companies provide free trials. The VPs company already uses both of those applications. Yet he submitted expenses for the testing/trial of those applications, despite them offering free trials.

I think Howard's participation in this thread and the explanations given are noteworthy, some might say it's a nice gesture. 

Equally as nice of a gesture would be the changing of the thread title, ya know, since he is engaging and all.

ace789nj said:

I think Howard's participation in this thread and the explanations given are noteworthy, some might say it's a nice gesture. 

Equally as nice of a gesture would be the changing of the thread title, ya know, since he is engaging and all.

+1 

cramer said:

ace789nj said:

I think Howard's participation in this thread and the explanations given are noteworthy, some might say it's a nice gesture. 

Equally as nice of a gesture would be the changing of the thread title, ya know, since he is engaging and all.

+1 

 +2.  Howard makes an effort here on MOL, and is one of only 2 Trustees who do.  As I've said before, let's not drive him away.

levisonhw said:

michaelgoldberg 

I think these rate changes were stated in public including at the last BOT meeting, discussions at both the Finance Committee meeting and the Budget workshop - nothing hidden.

We have discussed purchasing in the past - there are specific rules and approvals that are followed - if you want I  can retrieve the document I provide previously outlining municipal purchasing law.

Lastly, please tell me when I ever supported EOWC.

My comment was about truth in advertising and how all politicians only tell half the story while they are campaigning.  For example, please show me on your campaign website or during any of your campaign events where you mention raising the sewer tax and the water tax, or your support for John's no-show contract or Metarhythm's no-show contract.  As for EOWC, you can keep denying your support, but it doesn't change the facts.that you repeatedly advocated to retain them while we were on the BOT together.