NY Village Sends Fake Water Bills

From Crotonblog.com :

Are Croton's Officials for Real--Or Do They Just Play at Being Officials on TV?

Years ago a major accident occurred on the Union Pacific Railroad a hundred miles from Omaha. Two trains, one eastbound and the other westbound, collided head-on, causing many deaths and injuries. At the inquest that followed, the not-very-bright towerman responsible for switching trains to their proper tracks, took the stand.

“Please tell the court what you observed on that fateful day,” the district attorney asked.“I saw the westbound City of San Francisco streamliner barreling down Track 2 at about 65 miles and hour.”

“And please tell the court what else you saw.” The towerman replied,“I saw the all-Pullman Overland Limited heading eastbound on the same track at about the same speed.”

“And what did you think about that?”

“What did I think? I thought it was a helluva way to run a railroad.”

Croton-on-Hudson also has some not-very-bright towermen. Recently 34 residents of the village were sent phony water bills—all in the randomly chosen astronomical amount of $1,096.45. Their purpose, conceived by non-elected, non-resident officials of the village, was, in their own words, to “get taxpayers’ attention.” In order to create the offending water bills, the figure of $1,096.45 was arbitrarily selected by Abe Zambrano, Village Treasurer, with the blessing of Richard Herbek, Village Manager. Presumably, too, a fictitious amount of water usage also had to be calculated to justify the fictitious dollar amount.

Crotonblog thinks that this shabby, heavy-handed action is a helluva way to run a village or to treat residents. The village created spurious billings for the sole purpose of coercing residents in whose homes the village had not installed electronically-read meters to make arrangements for such installation. The village’s elaborate scam—and there is no better word to describe it—resulted in rapid response from about half the number of residents who were concerned, upset and angry. They had every right to be unhappy.

Continue reading this story at CrotonblogDotCom...

The media seem to want to treat this wanton act as a joke. There is nothing funny about 34 counts of mail fraud perpetrated by an official bankrupt of ideas about how to deal with residents in a civilized manner. Officials whose salaries are paid by village residents should be more circumspect about the methods they use in dealing with those they work for.
The final insult--the officials involved are unelected appointees to their positions and do not even live in the village of Croton-on-Hudson.