According to the city of Dunkirk, the town of Dunkirk was made aware of the delinquent water bills prior to the town’s Nov. 7 meeting.

“That was an issue brought up, going back at least a year ago,” city Treasurer Mark Woods stated. “There were no questions at two meetings that I was involved in prior to all of this. Ultimately when the county issues the bills the town has to collect those property tax bills because they’re within their district. It really should have been no surprise to the town of Dunkirk. They were aware that there would be accounts with delinquent balances.”

However the Dunkirk Town Board did seem genuinely surprised by this news as reported in the OBSERVER on Nov. 12. According to Woods, the unpaid balances total $26,417, which Fourth Ward Councilman Mike Civiletto cites that in the grand scheme of things is a small amount when one considers the overall amount of water bills the city does collect.

“They might have been paid already. I don’t think that some of them are due until (today),” Civiletto said. “I was under the impression that that was in the contract, who was going to be responsible for collecting the money after we let them go. The thing is that once they are no longer our customers, they’re no longer our customers; we can’t go after them, they’re no longer our district. Now they’re their customers. We’d just like some help.”