By Josh Resnek
I’ve looked at this water bill about a dozen times. It is kind of amazing.
It is the mayor’s water bill as taken from the city website.
Kind of amazing, don’t you think?
Water bills are to be paid monthly, as required by billing and collection improvements made by the mayor.
If you are a homeowner, you are required to pay your bill.
However, the above facsimile of the mayor’s water bill as it was found on the city’s website, makes it appear that what most Everett residents are forced to do, the mayor does not do.
Now maybe this bill is for one month and the mayor hasn’t yet written the check to the city as required.
This is doubtful.
It can be assumed with a great deal of certainty that very few single family homes in Everett run up $2,100 water bills like the mayor’s.
The implication is that the mayor has not paid his bill in quite some time.
Does the mayor have to pay his water bill or is free water part of his salary?
I’d like to ask Chief Financial Officer Eric Demas about this – you know – in the name of transparency.
I’d like to ask City Solicitor Colleen Mejia as well. After all, she’s a lawyer who understands such things – or does she?
When it comes to the mayor, she might tend to insist that the above bill isn’t really the mayor’s bill or that the mayor doesn’t have to pay, or that she believes it would be against the law for the mayor to pay his water bill.
Obviously, Demas and Mejia don’t speak with me.
They only speak with the mayor and his cohorts.
Paying your water bill is a basic thing to do.
It appears the mayor does not do this with any sense of responsibility.
How does this translate?
What is required of homeowners must be done from month to month – and the mayor set it up to be that way.
However the mayor does not do as he has required others to do.
Is this right or is this wrong?
Maybe I need to ask Councilor Al Lattanzi or the mayor’s cousin, Councilor Anthony DiPierro.
But then you have to wonder, do they pay their water bills?