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The battle of the big water bill

Pasco bills a deployed soldier $338 for his empty home. Mom goes to war.

By JODIE TILLMAN
Published June 16, 2006

HUDSON - Lidia McQuade’s son, a sergeant in the Army, left for Afghanistan last year. Since then, she has concentrated on making sure he had nothing to worry about back home.

She changes the bedspread at his empty house in Hudson, hangs clean curtains in the windows and has a neighbor mind his mailbox and flush the toilets once a week.

The routine went smoothly, until the most recent water bill arrived. It had been running $17 to $20 a month. But the April bill for Sgt. Christopher Kawalec’s unoccupied home was $338.25.

“I went straight for the phone,” recalled McQuade, who lives in Tarpon Springs.

First she called the Pasco County Utility Department. Then she took her appeal to Washington.

***
A Pasco County Utilities worker told McQuade the water meter was correct. “She said, 'You can do whatever you want. We have proof that this is what the meter says’, ” McQuade recalled.

McQuade asked to speak to an official in a higher position. The woman put down the phone, said McQuade, but did not put it on hold.

“She said, 'Ladies, she wants to go higher. Which of you is higher than me?’

“There must have been a lot of ladies, because I heard a lot of laughs,” said McQuade.

McQuade, 55, said she eventually reached an office supervisor who was polite, but firm: The county was standing by its meter.

At that point, McQuade turned to Beverly Young, the wife of U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young. Beverly Young has a reputation for helping service members.

Young’s office called the Pasco office this week and was unhappy with the county’s unyielding position. “This kid is not able to defend himself because he is in Afghanistan,” he said.

His wife was more blunt: “This is the way Pasco County Utilities feels about soldiers serving in our country: Blow it out your a--.”

***

McQuade, who owns a skin care salon in Palm Harbor, said the county keeps referring to what the meter says. And what the meter says is this: An unoccupied home in the Meadow Oaks subdivision somehow used 76,000 gallons of water in a month’s time.

“We don’t know what happened at this point,” said Bob Sigmond, director of utilities.
County workers could find no sign of a leak in the home, he said, and they double-checked the meter reading.
And that being the case, he said, the department will not reduce the bill, even given the absence of the homeowner.

“The ordinance says we can’t give free service,” he said.
Sigmond said the issue is “how do you treat everybody fairly.”

He questioned whether the department should make exceptions for military personnel and not for cancer patients or recent divorcees with children struggling to pay the bills.

“Where do you draw the line,” he asked.

He added that he had not heard McQuade had been treated poorly by the department staff fielding her call. If that was the case, he said, he would be “disappointed.”

For her part, McQuade said she is asking to have the bill reduced, not because her son is a deployed soldier, but because it is incorrect.

“I would not dispute this if the water was used,” she said.

***

So if the county concedes there is no pipe leak, what could account for the water use?

Some possibilities, said Sigmond, are a dripping faucet or toilet left running. He said the water could add up fast over a month’s time.

Impossible, said Bess-Mae Jones, the neighbor who has been checking the Hudson home every week, occasionally running the sink to check the tap water and flushing the two toilets when she cleaned them.

“I’m a paranoid kind of person,” said Jones. “I always make sure the toilet is not running, even in my own house.”

***

McQuade says the 30-year-old son she raised in Tarpon Springs is a quiet, hard working former football player at a Clearwater Catholic High School. He joined the U.S. Army eight years ago.

He is meticulous, and that got him noticed. He was chosen to be an honor guard at the White House during the Clinton administration.

After serving in the honor guard for three years, he got a job with a company that builds parking lots. He joined the

Army Reserve five years ago and went to Afghanistan in March of 2005.

Three years ago, he had a ranch house built in a small Hudson subdivision. Three bedrooms. Two-car garage. Nice yard.

“He likes to succeed in life,” his mother said. “He wanted to have his own house, eventually his own family.”

Washington Bureau Chief Bill Adair contributed to this report. Jodie Tillman can be reached at 727-869-6247 or jtillman@sptimes.com.

[Last modified June 16, 2006, 21:15:58]