Tenants relieved after month long drought

The Village Apartments, a residence located at 2231 Live Oak St. in Commerce, had its water shut off by the City of Commerce on Sept. 29, not having it restored until Oct. 28. Arthur Johnson and his son, owners of the apartment complex, which has housed many Texas A&M University-Commerce students in the past and currently houses at least one, failed to pay the water bill on time. Johnson insists, however, that the bill given to him by the city is too high.

"This last time the water bill was almost $9,000 dollars," Johnson said. "They (the city) didn't work with us on it."According to billing statements, the eventual payment made which resulted in the return of water to residents was actually $11,800. This is similar to a payment made last June which topped $11,500. According to city records, both of these bills were so high due to backed payments, late fees, and penalties. This left responsible, rent paying residents, quite literally, out to dry. With no payments coming in, the city had no way to turn the water back on.

"The city doesn't like to get to a point where they cut the water off," Marc Clayton, director of administrative services for commerce and graduate of East Texas State University said. "Especially some place like an apartment complex where it's not the tenants' responsibility to pay for the water anyways. But, if we finally run all our options out to the owner, and they won't pay, we do get to a cutoff point."

Clayton continued to say the city did warn residents of The Village Apartments, putting a tag on the doors of the apartments saying when and why the water would be turned off. This is meant to give residents extra incentive to pressure the owners to pay their bills on time. In this case, however, it failed to work.

"I understand that some of those didn't get left on the doors," Clayton said about this instance of using door tags to warn residents of water being cut off. "I understand that some of those were taken off the doors, so I can't guarantee each tenant got to see theirs. That's just what we were told."

Although this was the longest time The Village Apartments has gone without water, it is not the first. In fact, it has been cut off three times within the last year due to non-payment. In fact, according to billing records, water was cutoff to the apartments within the first month after Johnson and his son took ownership.

"This account's got a bad payment history," Clayton said. "We're extremely easy to work with. We tried extensively to reach the owners. They did call us a few times, and say they were going to come in and pay it. That never happened."

Clayton also said The Village Apartments were having problems with their supplier of gas. In a case like this, there is not much that can be done by the city for apartment residents.

"Basically, our hands are tied," Clayton said. "We're sympathetic, we hate that it happens, we try to give plenty of notice, we try to work with the owners. Once it gets to that point, we really have no alternative for the tenants."One A&M-Commerce student who lives at The Village

Apartments, and was living there at the time the water was cutoff, says he was not warned about it. He hopes in the future something more can be done.

"It is very inconvenient, especially for a student," the student said. "Every morning you have to go and fetch water and try and prepare to go to school. You don't need to have that type of problem. Next time, maybe the city council can warn the tenants before they turn off the water, so that at least we can prepare and maybe save up the water.

"And maybe they could give us alternatives. Like if they say they were going to turn off the water next month, then we could make arrangements to move out and not pay the rent for that coming month when they are going to turn the water off."Manager of The Village Apartments, Madeline Ebert, said that the A&M-Commerce student living there will not be charged rent for the month that the water was not available.