BY DONNA WESTFALL

Volunteers urgently needed still.  We have had coverage at the water department, but only for a couple of hours a day and want coverage there from the time they open until they close. We use a wooden TV tray with signs taped to it that state; PROTEST SEWER RATE.  If you can volunteer,  you help walk people through filling out the protest form.  It takes about 30 seconds. It’s simple.  Print name.  Print street Address.  Sign your name.  Mark whether you are they are the owner or the tenant.

We have had many people and businesses making copies of the protest letter for us.  We’ve had several write Letters to the Editor to both crescentcitytimes.com and the Triplicate.  The Trip actually printed my letter on Saturday, April 12th without changing a word.

We’ve had most people contributing $1 per parcel or more to help with expenses and we’ll be able to put an advertisement in the Triplicate this Saturday, April 19th.

Larry Child’s Park City Superette Market has blank protest forms.  You can go there to sign the sewer rate protest between the hours of 9 am to 7 pm.  It’s located at the corner of Elk Valley Road and Howland Hill.  And you can shop there too.

We tried handing in our first batch of protests to the City last week.  They weren’t sure about my control sheet which listed each protest by name and parcel number and/or sewer account number.  I placed this statement on the bottom:  “I declare under penalty of perjury that the protests being handed in are originals.”  Then, normally when I hand something in to City Hall, I have them sign for and date stamp my copy. They would not do this.  They called in City Manager, Gene Palazzo.  He said he would get back to me in the morning after discussing it with City Clerk, Robin Patch and City Attorney, Bob Black.  Guess they’re still discussing it as I haven’t heard a peep yet.

In analyzing the problems with the count on the water rate protest, many mistakes were made by the City and by our group.  The City didn’t count many that should have been counted.  We’re asking people to write complaint letters so it is documented.  The mistakes by our group fall into this category.  Since the City would not provide a list of addresses and users, we have been operating in the dark so to speak.  If someone said they paid the bill, we took them at their word.  Come to find out that the bill was in someone else’s name and the protest was then disqualified.

Example.  Mother has been living in the same home for 15 years and she pays the water/sewer bill.  The account is in her son’s name and he lives out of town and couldn’t care less what goes on in Crescent City.  Her signature was disqualified because she was not the one that signed up for water/sewer service.

So to rectify these problems, we’re asking everyone to provide a phone number.  When we call you, we are going to ask you who is on the account?  Tonight I had to re-do 4 protests taken earlier by 2 different volunteers because it had signatures that would have been disqualified.  Now, we know for certain that each will be valid.  The easiest way to avoid any more problems is to have your account number handy when people come knocking on your door.

If we work together, we’ll stop the sewer rate from increasing.  So, sign and help out because losing is no longer an option.