DAN CEARNS The Standard
KAWARTHA LAKES: A press release intended to notify residents of how to pay their bills, amid the COVID-19 closures, lead to the Mayor of the City of Kawartha Lakes having to make a statement. The press release, sent out on Thursday, March 19th, included ways people could make their tax and utility payments by phone, online banking, mail or through a drop box at city hall. However, one part of the release received a lot of backlash from residents on social media. It read, “All payments must be received in our office on or before the due date. Late payments will be subject to penalty and interest charges. We do not accept the postmark as proof of the date of receipt,” the line read in the release. Numerous residents took to Twitter and Facebook to vent their frustrations with the decision because of the financial pressures COVID-19 has put on families and individuals. On Friday, March 20th, Mayor Andy Letham made a statement. “Yesterday, a message went out to our residents regarding payment of bills and utilities. The intent of that message failed; we were trying to let our residents know how they could pay their bills with some of our buildings being closed, and what we ended up doing was causing additional stress to a lot of our residents. Obviously, that was not the intent, for that I apologize,” he said. “I want to address that right now, I want to assure our residents no essential services will be disconnected. There will be no penalty or interest applied to any account until further notice. We are aware of the hardship that many of our residents are going through. Obviously, as a municipality we are not looking to add to that burden. Relief and flexibility are on the way. There are a lot of things going on in the community right now, but we will work with you to help get through this.”
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