Water charge was all wet

By The Daily Progress

Published: November 22, 2008

We knew things were tough for city coffers … but threatening a woman’s home over a 1-cent water bill?

Attleboro, Mass., dunned a 74-year-old blind woman with a possible $48 penalty and a threat to put a lien on her house because she owed a penny on her July 2007-2008 water bill.

City Collector Debora Marcoccio said about 2,000 dunning letters went out, all of them generated by computer and none of them reviewed by staff.

OK, we can understand the blindness of a computer, if nobody told it to ignore minor sums.

But Ms. Marcoccio didn’t come across as the helpful public servant when she told a local newspaper, “My question is: How come it wasn’t paid when the [original] bills went out?”

Maybe the blind woman missed “seeing” that particular bill?

Maybe she’d previously made a payment that was just the tiniest bit off?

Maybe she thought a penny wasn’t worth bothering with?

Meanwhile, of course, it cost the city 42 cents to mail that letter. How’s that for government economics?

Some hidden assets

Welcome to America.

On her very first day working at a Goodwill store in Glen Carbon, Ill., Teodora Petrova —  newly arrived from Bulgaria — got a $7,500 “bonus.”

The money, packaged in large bills, was found among a donation of old shoes that she was sorting.

Ms. Petrova turned the money over to managers, who were able to piece together clues about the money’s owner from scraps of paper left in the box.

The shoes had belonged to the donor’s deceased parents.

Ms. Petrova has been offered a reward for turning over the money.

We say she’ll make a fine American resident.

Tasty pick for voters

Did you hear about the Colorado state Senate election that sounded more like a menu order than a political ballot?

Matt Fries was challenging long-time politician Bob Bacon for the seat.

You can imagine a waitress saying, “What’ll you have, folks? Bacon or Fries?”

Voters in the northern Colorado district ordered Fries to stay home.

Meanwhile, do you suppose Mr. Bacon’s re-election had anything to do with bringing home the pork?