A petition with a couple hundred signatures already is making its way around Johnstown. People tell WTAJ that it’s in an effort to oppose the Johnstown Redevelopment Authority’s “posting fee” for sewage bills.
“My bill just went up $50?” Johnstown resident Jobe Matula says he wasn’t the only one who wondered why his bill more than doubled.
Since he closed his business last year, Matula says it’s been tough, and extra charges like this don’t help.
“The very people who don’t have it in the first place are getting charged an extra $50.”
He started a petition, which he says is about a possible illegal fee imposed by the Johnstown Redevelopment Authority, in relation to sewage bills. If it is posted on your door, your new bill could cost you three times your original one, “Just to put this on my door you’re charging me $50? I’m like that’s ridiculous.”
Residents are calling the fee outrageous.
“Today and for the next couple of days I’ll be out downtown getting signatures,” Matula says. “There’s a lot of people who don’t have the Internet. They don’t have Facebook.”
Petitioners suggest increasing the fee gradually as payments are missed.
WTAJ spoke to a sewage operation manager with JRA who explained that residents are given five weeks to pay their bill . If they don’t, they receive the posting fee and have ten days to make a payment. It covers the costs of the collection effort.
The manager says they are willing to take into consideration financial hardships.
As far as the petition is concerned, the manager says JRA must address it as a board.
“The next step is the people that signed that petition, I’ll be approaching them for a possibly a class action lawsuit,” Matula explains. “Whatever money they can give, whatever information they can give, however much they can help, I want to explore it and get our money back.”
Before that Matula plans to first take his signed petition to JRA’s next meeting on November 15.