Over $6K owed
Village shuts off Fisher’s water again



ALTAMONT — Alice Fisher’s water is off again at her Gun Club Road home.

When the widow’s access to village water was shut off in December, Fisher and several of her children were homeless until June, when Helderberg Community Safe Haven offered to step in and foot the bill; she owed the village over $6,000 for three years of water and sewer fees.

On June 8, the village had returned water service to Fisher’s house with the understanding that Safe Haven would pay the outstanding bill by June 22, Mayor James Gaughan said at Altamont’s July 3 village board meeting. After a month correspondence between Gaughan and Richard Umholtz, president of Safe Haven, water flow to the Fisher home was cut on July 9, Gaughan said.
"He didn’t get paid is the point" I have no problem with what the mayor did," Umholtz said this week. "It’s not just a matter of paying the bill and moving back in," he said of the family’s situation.

Currently, the Fishers are living in one of the two apartments that Safe Haven maintains in the Helderbergs for temporary use by families who have lost their homes. In the month that the Fishers have been living there, Robert Fisher, Alice Fisher’s 17-year-old son, has been arrested twice for menacing behavior.
"We have done what we are capable of doing and it’s time for other agencies to step up," Dr. Margery Smith, vice president of Safe Haven, said this week. Umholtz agreed that several agencies will need to come together to work out the situation, but he still hopes to pay the water bill by means of an unidentified source. According to Smith, Safe Haven does not have the money to foot the bill itself.
The overdue bill began accumulating in April of 2004, according to the village. In response to a Freedom of Information Law request, village Clerk Jean La Crosse wrote "Ms. Alice Fisher has been in long-term arrears currently accumulating to an amount in excess of $6,000 which includes water and sewer rent in addition to penalties." Fisher now owes a total of $6,811 to Altamont, about $676 of which are penalties.

The village has spent a total of $1,754 in legal costs since Fisher’s water situation entered the courts last winter, La Crosse said. Guy Roemer, the village’s attorney, is paid an annual salary of $7,782, she said, and the lawyer who has been handling the case for the village, James Roemer, who is the brother of the village attorney, is paid $175 per hour.
"The linchpin around all of this is paying the outstanding debt," Gaughan said of Fisher’s water situation. "It really always has been."