WHITE'S WATER BOARD BILLS

City Councilman's nonprofit group owes quarter million in unpaid water bills
BY BRENDAN BROSH
Tuesday, April 22nd 2008, 4:00 AM

Thomas White
A nonprofit group run by City Councilman Thomas White owed the city nearly a quarter of a million dollars in unpaid water bills, according to records obtained by the Queens News.
Water bills at one the group's buildings on Baisley Blvd. in South Jamaica ballooned to $226,789.83, according to city Department of Environmental Protection records.
White (D-Jamaica) is CEO of the Queens Village Committee for Mental Health for the Jamaica Community Adolescents Program.

He recently sponsored two well-attended seminars in his district on how to pay off delinquent water bills - an irony that has raised the hackles of government watchdogs.
"It's incredulous that a member of the City Council would head a nonprofit that owes over $200,000 in unpaid water bills," said Dick Dadey, executive director of the government watchdog group Citizens Union. "As an elected official, he needs to set an example as a model citizen. He clearly is not."

White said he believed his group - dedicated to substance abuse and mental health outreach - was being overcharged and stopped paying its bill several years ago.
"We're not scofflaws," White said. "We've entered into an agreement with the DEP to pay."
The group began a payment plan in 2005 and expects to pay off the bill by 2010, White said.
White initially thought his group was being unfairly saddled with the usage at a nearby swimming pool. "We arranged for an evaluation of our meter," he said.

That evaluation revealed the group, in fact, did owe the oceanic sum.
"DEP provided a list of all the people in our district who had outstanding water bills," said the councilman's spokesman, Josh Wojehowski. "We called every person on that list - around 800 people."

This is White's second stint as a Council member. He first served from 1991 to 2001, when he was term-limited out of office. He came out of retirement in 2005 to defeat disgraced Councilman Allan Jennings. White is the chairman of the panel's Economic Development Committee and is the only member of the Queens delegation who will not be term-limited out of office next year.

White has one of the worst attendance records in the Council and, according to a 2005 Daily News column, his group received more than $28 million in city contracts. City rules do not bar Council members from earning outside income because the position is considered part-time.
"The city should consider withholding funds to pay outstanding water bills," Dadey said. "It's amazing that all these troubles and conflicts continue to surround an elected representative to the City Council and he continues to survive."