Local resident seeks justice drop by drop
Randy Tetzner makes his case during an administrative hearing to determine the fate of his outstanding water bill. The Coeur d'Alene resident's request for the hearing was an anomaly in City history, as no hearing to settle a dispute over a water bill had been conducted before in City Hall's memory. (CRAIG NORTHRUP/Press)
Vonnie Jensen, Comptroller for the City of Coeur d'Alene, holds an old version of the City's utility door tags. The outdated language on the tag opened the door for Tetzner to request a hearing to dispute his water bill, what is believed to be the first and last such hearing of its kind in Coeur d'Alene history. (CRAIG NORTHRUP/Press)
By CRAIG NORTHRUP
Staff Writer
A standoff over an unpaid bill led the city of Coeur d’Alene and one of its citizens into uncharted waters Friday afternoon, making history as the only administrative hearing concerning a water bill on the city’s books.
“To my knowledge,” chief civil deputy city attorney Randall Adams said, “and from the memory of everyone in this building, this is the first time we’ve ever held an administrative hearing to settle a dispute over an unpaid water bill.”
The quirk in civic management has been percolating for months. Resident Randy Tetzner has not paid his water bill for what he lists as a considerable variety of reasons, ranging from inability to pay to possible water leakage to what he perceived as a lack of due process throughout the payment process. Tetzner’s bill reached $512. After negotiations with the city broke down, Tetzner found a toehold: the tag the Water Department left on his door to signal a pending shutoff.
“It’s never been an issue before, at least in the time I’ve been here,” said comptroller Vonnie Jensen, who represented the city at the proceedings. “This was just a fluke.”
The fluke gave Tetzner his window of opportunity.
Ordinarily, if a bill goes unpaid, the city leaves tags on doorknobs to indicate the date and time of the shutoff, as well as a litany of potential reasons for the suspension of service. Jensen said the older tags, those the city began using decades before, included language offering a hearing to city residents who wished to contest the action. While the city no longer uses those tags, Jensen said some were still in circulation.
Tetzner received such a tag.
“I decided to exercise my right and request a hearing,” he said.
“This went through the basic standards of due process,” said Adams, whose function on Friday was that of mediator, essentially a judge who would rule with final authority on the matter. “We gathered records, we planned out the hearing, and we asked him for dates that would accomodate him. Today was a day that worked for him.”
But the city had a problem, Adams admitted. No detailed process for an administrative hearing about a water bill existed.
“Our city code does have processes and standard procedures that we used to guide us,” Adams said, “but there was no specific process written down to address this matter, mainly because no one had ever asked for it before.”
The hearing began at 1 p.m. Friday. Tetzner came prepared. Armed with case law, Thomas Jefferson quotes and a stack of documents critiquing code enforcement in Wichita, Kan., Tetzner railed against a Coeur d’Alene employee deciding the case in a matter between city and citizen. For more than a half-hour, the discussion sounded less like an examination of a water bill and more like the back-half of a “Law & Order” episode.
“In Green v. Lindsey,” Tetzner argued, “enjoyment of property is a Constitutional right.”
Later, the hearing’s main witness (a city employee in the Water Department named Jason) was sequestered, leading to a dialogue as to whether the correct term was “sequestered” or “excluded.”
The crux of Tetzner’s initial argument came down to due process. He considered a mediator working for an interested party to be a conflict of interest. He also claimed he never received documents that he requested.
“For a layperson,” Adams said while the parties were in recess, “I think he’s done very well. I think the city has been very patient with him, but I think he’s taking the matter seriously, and I can respect that.”
“Being first at something sucks,” Tetzner later said. “It’s all uncharted territory, to a certain degree. I just want people to know that they have a mechanism to fight the bill. They have another bite at the apple.”
Coeur d’Alene citizens might not actually have that bite much longer.
Jensen said the outdated tags are being cycled out of the system, and that discussion is underway to remove the procedure from the city books, which likely made this the only kind of administrative hearing in recent Coeur d’Alene history.
For the record, Tetzner and the city settled. Tetzner agreed to a structured payment schedule. He considers the afternoon spent in the courtroom a win.
“I use the judicial process when I think there’s a wrong that needs righting,” he said. “That’s what our system of government is supposed to be all about.”