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Public schools should begin separating college bound and trade kids in the 8th grade. Each year trade kids may attempt to test out of trade track and move to college track.

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I like a lot of your post, but this is insane.

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Detroit is a poor city that cannot afford to pay for services while not requiring payment for those services

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Which is why I said the department should not have let things get to this point. If sending notices, offering assistance, and shutting off delinquents had always been the policy, they wouldn't be at the point where a big cut-off campaign was necessary, and there wouldn't be people with signs in the streets.

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when the water department goes belly up, nobody gets water. how is that fair to those who pay?

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Detroit borrowed and borrowed and borrowed to pay for bad business deals and pensions and whatnot, but when the time comes to borrow to keep the water flowing, they can't because the credit is too bad and the water dept looks unprofitable? Terrible government, and the citizens pay for it.

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how is the emigration of people using more than they pay for going to reduce net revenue?

getting those people to move will be positive for the city, i reckon

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Water department costs are largely maintenance and operation of the existing infrastructure. Reducing the amount of water they produce will not appreciably reduce costs. They need more people.

Being involved with a shelter, i concur with this

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When you're homeless, a minimum wage job and a studio apartment is better than sleeping on a cot at the shelter


you would think, but they dont think like you and me.

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Detroit allowed the bills to get out of control because they didn't want to cut people off.

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Now that it got out of control

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It should have been easy to see this coming, right?

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what would you have them do?

They can't go back in time and just cut them off after 2 months. They can only do whats in the best interest of the city now.

So again, what would you have them do NOW?

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Do you think what they are doing is in the best interest of the city?

Here is what I would have them do NOW. Tally up delinquent balances, and consider it a monumental frick-up on their part that they will be lucky to collect half of. Provide notice to all customers of when their new policies will go into effect. If customers can keep up with their bills after this date, their water stays on. Their bill will consist of the usual monthly usage charges, plus a portion of their delinquent balance, which would not exceed a certain amount ($10? $20? maybe a %?) per month.

Seem fair?

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Here is what I would have them do NOW. Tally up delinquent balances, and consider it a monumental frick-up on their part that they will be lucky to collect half of. Provide notice to all customers of when their new policies will go into effect. If customers can keep up with their bills after this date, their water stays on. Their bill will consist of the usual monthly usage charges, plus a portion of their delinquent balance, which would not exceed a certain amount ($10? $20? maybe a %?) per month.

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That is somewhat reasonable, but these people are arguing that they should not have to pay for water at all, so I doubt your solution would work.

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Here is what I would have them do NOW. Tally up delinquent balances, and consider it a monumental frick-up on their part that they will be lucky to collect half of. Provide notice to all customers of when their new policies will go into effect. If customers can keep up with their bills after this date, their water stays on. Their bill will consist of the usual monthly usage charges, plus a portion of their delinquent balance, which would not exceed a certain amount ($10? $20? maybe a %?) per month.

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The problem with this is a large segment of the population already can't/won't pay their bills. Add on top of that the fact that Detroit has a way above national average service cost for water utilities and not very many of the affected customers will be able to/or want to float this.

Give each one a 55 gallon drum and a water hose. Problem sovled.

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I don't think they want to have their water cut off. Didn't half of them pay up already after being cut off? They city could have saved the $6m they paid the contractor to do this massive round of cut offs by just giving notice that water WILL be turned off for non-payment, and then following through with that going forward.

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WTF? Some of the accounts were in arrears for a year. Almost every functioning adult that I know would reason this was grounds for service disconnection.

Also shut off notices were sent out in May

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Some of these people owe more than $1k. Some of those people just won't be able to pay that off, and they need water. I think they would be better with a payment plan rather than a lump sum.

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And my point is that with an already abnormally high service rate, almost all of these folks won't be able to pay their bill let alone an additional back payment.

From the list DWSD released of most delinquent accounts:

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Total balance 8 MILE PROPERTY INVESTMENTS LLC $72,207 ATOM LLC $120,105 BAY LOGISTICS $81,989 CHEYENNE COIN LAUNDRY $58,858 COLONIAL MANOR PROPERTIES LLC $85,587 CROWN ENTERPRISES INC $95,875 CRYSTAL MOTEL $51,926 DANIL NRECAJ $42,364 DISPOSAL & RECYCLING TECH. $107,714 EQ DETROIT, INC $270,914 GREENBRIAR APTS $47,309 HEARTLAND COMMUNITY $217,226 INTEGRATED PACKAGING $61,629 IVEY AND ASSOCIATES $86,780 MATRIX $159,361 METRO BUILDING GROUP, LLC $56,077 METRO LIVERNOIS, LLC $302,845 MICHIGAN WASTE ENERGY INC. $244,473 MT. OLIVET CEMETERY $62,393 RESIDENT (17900 Ryan Rd, LLC) $54,666 RESIDENT (18718 Borman, LLC) $338,359 RESIDENT (address: 5960 Tireman St) $44,683 RESIDENT (Alarayshi, Yahya Zakaria) $37,120 RESIDENT (All American Towing, Inc) $41,654 RESIDENT (Brodhead Armory) $49,961 RESIDENT (G F H Enterpries, Inc) $55,260 RESIDENT (New Fellowship Church) $91,324 RESIDENT (RH & PM Greenfield PD, LLC) $42,876 RESIDENT (West Chicago Development, LLC) $62,055 RUSSELL INDUSTRIAL ASSOCIATES $181,220 SAPERSTEIN ASSOCIATES $75,404 SHELBOURNE SQUARE APTS $263,235 ST. JAMES NURSING CENTER $45,980 STATE OF MICHIGAN-DMB $86,890 VARGO GOLF $109,897 VARGO GOLF $478,208

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