Val Serbalik

Attorney at Law
518.664.7342
val@serbaliklaw.com

Office Address Mailing Address

96 North Main Street 761 Valley Woods Road
Mechanicville, NY 12118 Bolton Landing, NY 12814

December 24, 2021

Mayor Dennis Baker via email and Certified Mail

City of Mechanicville
36 North Main Street
Mechanicville, NY 12118

RE: 2022 Sewer/Water Billings

Dear Mayor Baker:

I represent a number of City commercial and residential property owners who have expressed
concerns with the method, computation, and collection of sewer and water fees assessed against
their real properties located within the City. As you know, these fees and charges are substantial,
and assessed in part based upon the number of “units” situate on the properties. It appears that
there has been a systemic failure on the part of the Office of Commissioner Accounts to properly,
if not legally, bill City taxpayers for these services, to wit:

1. The Commissioner has failed to properly compute the number of units located upon
properties, resulting in gross overcharges on both City/County property tax bills and
water/sewer bills.

2. The Commissioner has apparently failed to monitor or ensure that City users are being
properly assessed by the Saratoga County Sewer District as allowed per §158-43 of the
City Code, the failure resulting in over charges on City/County tax bills.

3. The Commissioner has failed to comply with §158.44 of the City Code in its billing of City
sewer charges, which section of the Code requires that sewer charges be billed on the
City/County tax bill.

4. The Commissioner has illegally assessed on its water bills, sewer charges in violation of
City Charter §57, and §158-44 and §194-19 of the City Code.

5. In addition to the illegal sewer charges, the Commissioner has illegally imposed a 60% per
annum late fee on that portion of the bill allocated to sewer charges.

With a new year approaching, with accompanying tax assessments, it is requested that the City
Mayor Dennis Baker
December 24, 2021
Page 2

conduct an investigation into the practices of the Commissioner Accounts Office in its computation
of “units” for sewer and water billing purposes and take all corrective action to remediate future
billing errors. To minimize issues in any future litigation, it is also demanded that from this date
forward, the Commissioner of Accounts comply with the City Code and Charter in respect to water
and sewer billings, including the imposition of egregious late fees, which illegal fees, during this
COVID pandemic, have created consternation and an undue financial burden upon my clients,
including a number of the City’s elderly property owners on fixed incomes.

Very truly yours,

/s/ Val Serbalik

Val Serbalik
VS.ts
Copy: Lyn Murphy – via email only