Board of Selectmen
Town of Belmont
Belmont, Massachusetts 02478
.sp
Gentlemen:
.PP
I wish to bring to your attention what appears to me
a serious accounting irregularity on the part of the Belmont
Water Department. It is not on my own account that
I turn to you, but on behalf of residents of Belmont
other than myself, who may be less resourceful than I
in protecting themselves against an egregious impropriety.
.PP
On December 10, 2004, I received a statement of account from the Water
Department charging me for the consumption of 6138 cu ft
of water over a 63 day period, during 23 days and 21 nights
of which, the premises were unoccupied. The statement showed
no meter reading for the beginning of the accounting period (09-15-04)
and a meter reading of 6138 for the end of the accounting period
(11-17-04). The machine which printed the bill translated
the absence of an entry to "0", and calculated the consumption
as being equal to the final reading, 6138 cu ft. (6138 - 0 = 6138)
this in comparison with 760 cu ft, the true volume of water used
and a mere 12.4% of the alleged consumption.
.PP
I could come to terms with the fact that a clerk might
have made a data entry error, leaving blank where a previous
reading should have been recorded. But I cannot come to terms
with the circumstance that upon telephone inquiry
to the Water Department, I was told
that the absence of an entry under "previous reading" reflected
the circumstance that on September 15, 2004,
an old water meter had been replaced
with a new instrument, that new water meters were known to be
set to 0 when they came from the factory,
that the Water Department knew with absolute certainty
that 6138 cu ft of water had gone through the meter,
and that the admittedly high rate of water use
(five times the per diem consumption of previous billing periods)
must have been due to a dripping faucet or a leaking toilet tank.
.PP
The reason I cannot come to terms with the Water Department's
explanation is that I have discovered conclusive documentary
and physical evidence that there was no installation
on September 15, 2004 of any new water meter
whose reading might have been set to 0 at the factory;
that the devices measuring water consumption in my house
have been in place since November 2003,
and that the Water Department's explanation
and justification for a bill of $650 was,
to put it mildly, not so.
.PP
I expect, before long, to receive from the Water Department,
a corrected bill for an amount of approximately twenty-four dollars,
and I do not, at this juncture, request your intervention
in my controversy. I am, however,
concerned about the possibility of systematic overcharging,
inadvertent or otherwise, of other residents of Belmont.
.PP
In my case, the overcharge occurred on a bill concurrent
with a substantial correction, in my favor,
of previous telemetry errors,
telemetry errors which I assume are system-wide
and not unique to my account.
This correction in my favor
of previous errors would have masked the effect of,
and caused me to overlook, any but a severely egregious
concomitant overcharge.
.PP
To ensure that others are protected against the systematic
abuse of municipal authority that I have encountered,
I respectfully suggest that you obtain an audit of at least
a sample of recent water bills, especially those
with previous meter readings of zero or null, 
as well as of those credited with telemetry errors,
to ensure that (concomitant) overcharges
have not been overlooked by their recipients,
and to ensure that justified complaints have not been
stifled by irresponsible misrepresentation.