Settlements for damages related to broken water meter covers, potholes, sewer backups and other problems has cost Atlanta taxpayers $1.25 million since 2010.
And in some cases the damage to people and property that taxpayers wound up paying for could have been avoided, as the city had already been made aware of some of the problems.
The city paid out the more than $1.25 million for property damage and personal injury claims between Jan. 1, 2010 and Oct. 21, 2011, according to city documents. That total does not include various settlements related to the police and fire rescue departments.
With a $550 million budget that continues to be under pressure, Atlanta can ill afford to waste money on settlements that stem from sloppy risk management, say some city leaders.
"It's expensive," said Michael Julian Bond, a member of the City Council's public safety committee. "It takes away money that we could use in many other places."
The payouts originate in a range of city departments, including watershed, public works and parks and recreation, according to a review of documents obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Atlanta's law department provided nearly two years of data on settlements for injuries and damages related to a variety of city properties.
Some city officials are incredulous over the steady drip-drip of money out of the city's coffers.
"Fourteen grand?" Bond said after the City Council voted to pay that amount in damages to a woman who claimed that she walked into an uncovered water meter box. A typical meter box is a foot or less deep, embedded in the ground or sidewalk and covered with a metal lid.
"How many water meter covers could we have bought for $14,000?" Bond wondered.
About 554, as it turns out. Each meter lid costs $25.25, according to the city's Department of Watershed Management.
In October, Atlanta paid $34,916 for damages related to a sewer backup at a Georgia State University building on Pryor Street. The claim alleged that hundreds of gallons of raw, untreated sewage spilled into the building after a sewage drain collapsed on Feb. 9, 2009.
"The investigation determined that the city had notice of problems with the sewer line prior to this occurrence and failed to make the necessary repairs," according to a Sept. 26 claim investigation summary from the city's law department. In cases of sewer backups, the city pays the claims when it is already on notice that there is a problem, Bond said.
"This is all preventable," he said.
Council member Joyce Sheperd, who also sits on the council's public safety committee, said the city needs to better train its workers to fix problems before they reach the level of a settlement.
"It's too much money we're paying out," she said. "We need to be doing everything we can to manage this."
City Attorney Cathy Hampton declined to discuss the city's strategy in settling or fighting claims.
"The Law Department makes recommendations to Atlanta City Council regarding whether to pay or reject claims on a case-by-case basis after investigation and consideration of the facts and legal issues involved," she said in an email.
As a practical matter, cities and counties in Georgia almost never settle unless a lawsuit is filed, said local plaintiff's attorney E. Michael Moran, who has worked on numerous cases related to municipal liability. Atlanta, Georgia's largest city, also has the largest number of payouts. But other areas are not immune to liability for issues related to infrastructure.
In 2009 and 2010, Gwinnett County paid out 110 claims totaling about $327,353 for sewer backups, said spokesman Joe Sorenson.
The number of Atlanta's payouts for dangerous water meter boxes contrasts markedly with some of its neighbors. Over the past 12 months, there have been only three incidents where someone has been injured by uncovered water meters in Cobb County, according to officials there. Gwinnett paid no claims for water meter covers or bad roads in 2009 and 2010, Sorenson said.
Some legal experts say that settling cases is cheaper than fighting them in court. But cheaper still would be routine maintenance and repairs.
Uncovered water meter boxes are sometimes the work of vandals or thieves who steal the lids, Jim Beard, then-deputy commissioner of the city's watershed department, told the AJC in an interview. He said the city would install more secure lids as part of a city-wide audit of residential meters.
"We can't leave a hole in the ground," said Beard, who has been tapped by Mayor Kasim Reed to become the city's chief financial officer. "It makes no sense from a business standpoint."
Georgia law requires cities to keep their streets and sidewalks free of defects of which they have notice, including broken water meters, Moran said.
"Our approach would be, the city knows there is an issue with these water meter covers breaking," he said. "If there were multiple payouts and multiple claims for the water meters, I would say they're on notice."
In the case of the $14,000 settlement, a law department investigation found that Atlanta had no actual notice of any problems with the water meter box at 262 James P. Brawley Dr. in northwest Atlanta. But the condition of the water meter indicated that the problem had existed long enough that the city was on notice anyway, according to the report.
The city, its leaders say, needs a greater investment in routine maintenance. It also needs an alert public to point out problems.
One investment in maintenance that's working is the four trucks dedicated to filling in potholes, said City Council member Yolanda Adrean, who chairs the council's finance/executive committee. She urged residents to call the city about potholes or busted water meter covers.
"It's really helpful for them to report it to the city," she said. But the larger issue is the lack of a sustainable method to fund the backlog of repairs on Atlanta's roads, bridges and sidewalks, she said. The state, she said, has reduced its allocation to paving roads in Atlanta, exacerbating the budget constraints.
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