Dear Editor:

This is in response to the last issue in your paper regarding the Water Department reply about the water issue.

On August 1, 2019 park managers and owners from Alder Grove, Marietta, the Grove, Broadview, and Wasankari Mobile Home Community met with the City Public Works director, the City Auditor, City Attorney, City Mayor and one other city worker at the meeting room in Alder Grove.

We discussed our concerns about the city insisting that the park owners read the water meters and bill the customers. We also discussed the water loss of the city. All the mobile home parks combined are losing about 4,195,000 gallons of water per year (this is the loss difference of what goes through the main meters of the parks and what of the individual meters billed to the tenant). The total loss for the city is 45,000,000 gallons per year.

The mobile home parks make up 1/3 the population on Forks. The total loss of water for all the mobile home parks is pale compared to the 40,805,000 gallons for the rest of the city. All the park owners at that meeting agreed to be willing to pay for the loss of water going through the main meter if the city kept reading and billing the customer who uses the water. All the city employees at the meeting would not budge on this issue, stating other cities only read the main meter and bill the owner of the park.

So, what! Other cities have space rent charges of $500: Are we to raise our rents because other cities have higher rates? The other reason was it is in the water code. Originally the code stated that parks would be charged as apartments, the owner would be charged for water plus a charge per unit.

Many years ago, we did not feel this was right, so we went to City Hall about a change to this rule. The City agreed stating if we put in our own meters and maintain them, they would bill the customer using the water. We agreed and did this. Evidently, the code was not changed so now the City wants to go back to that way of billing. The water code can be changed. The city has been billing the customers over 40 years this way so why change back now? I do not feel any of the park owners were happy with the city’s response to our concerns.

After the meeting, the mobile home park owners discussed what to do next. We will meet with the five City Council members individually to discuss with them regarding changing the city water code.

Jerry R. King, owner Alder Grove