The pool’s benefits outweigh its cost

I am responding to the article about long-awaited public pool that is costing $5.3 million dollars to build in South Glendale (“Community welcomes new pool,” Dec. 3).

Some city officials voted against the pool, with Councilman Dave Weaver arguing earlier that the city was unable to finance such an expensive project. Mayor Ara Najarian also at one point said he was “ashamed of the pool at that point.” On Thursday, however, he was more positive. The pool will be opened for public use by summer.

In these tough economic times, it will always be hard to fund new projects. There will never be a right moment for this. However, this is exactly how we achieved a beautiful and peaceful neighborhood.

Many years ago, ordinary citizens worked together with officials in order to see Glendale how we see it now. This is not the first time people have faced an economic crisis, but it doesn’t mean that we have to stop thinking about making Glendale a better place and help our children to become possible future champions.

We have a high standard of living in our city, and, therefore, we need to maintain our amenities as much as we can.

Yuliya Shypkova

Glendale

It takes needless energy to pay the power bill

For the second time, my regular online payment for my Glendale Water & Power bill has not gone through, resulting in much inconvenience to me in contacting the utility and making the payment good.

Apparently the utility’s automated billing system rejected the information I supplied, as there was a number wrongly entered. The result has been the account going into past due delinquency on two occasions.

The first time, despite my being a Glendale Water & Power customer for 20 years and never being late, I was forced to buy a cashier’s check and mail it in to avoid service disruption. The second time I had to go to the trouble of contacting customer service and arranging to re-enter the bank routing information (hopefully correctly this time).

The online payment protocol relies on the customer re-entering the same information (bank routing number and account number) each time payment is made. These are long and often repetitious numbers, and the potential of mis-entering one digit is high.

There is no notification to the customer if the payment doesn’t go through. The only way to find out is by checking one’s online payment page, which is probably going to be after the payment due date.

Glendale Water & Power has a rather aggressive attitude towards non-payment — in my case, the first time, refusing to accept an online payment or mailed-in check and insisting on a cashier’s check. I do not appreciate being treated like a deadbeat!

Perhaps Glendale Water & Power will consider keeping the customer’s routing and account information on file rather than making the customer enter the same information month after month. Also, a simple notification by e-mail that there is a payment problem shouldn’t be too hard for the billing department.

Lastly, it’s a password not a “PIN.” Who is designing the utility’s software?

William Malcomson

Glendale