High water bill rescinded

CITY HALL — Northeast Glendale resident Escott Norton won a refund for his $5,474 water bill Wednesday, a day after he went before the City Council to protest the local utility’s assertion that he used 1.5 million gallons during a two-month period.

Glendale Water & Power opted to credit Norton for the three $950 installments already paid. Instead, he will be charged $350 for the period, an amount calculated based on his normal usage, General Manager Glenn Steiger said.

“We just felt that it wasn’t worth debating this with him any longer,” Steiger said.

Norton was satisfied with the decision.

“I’m happy with the result, but boy I’ll be watching my meter very closely,” he said.

Norton had argued that he had not used the water and that no leaks had been spotted on his Buckingham Road property.

There was also no evidence that water was being stolen, transferred into tankers or flowing down the street into a nearby storm drain, Norton told the council, touching on other possible theories that could account for the missing quantity of water, which is enough to overflow a 3.5-foot-deep pool the size of a football field.

Glendale Water & Power officials, Norton said, were relying only on a meter reading to charge him for the water, despite no other proof that he used that quantity in 64 days.

Steiger stood by the meter reading Wednesday, even after offering Norton the concession.

“I have no idea what happened to the water, quite frankly,” Steiger said. “I do know, and I’ll stand by my previous opinion, that the meter is not wrong and I’ll leave it at that. I don’t know what he did with the water or what occurred, but I have nothing that tells me the meter wasn’t accurate.”

The tab puzzled the City Council and has boggled city officials who, regardless of the unusually high meter reading, had asked Norton to pay his bill in $950 installments.

“There is one thing that we all agree on,” Assistant City Manager Bob McFall told the council, “it is a significant amount of water and money, and it is inexplicable where it has actually gone.”

Council members, however, agreed with Norton that more evidence than a meter reading might be necessary to hold him responsible for such a large bill.