An unpaid water bill to the tune of more than $27,000 has led to a legal battle between Bayview Redi Mix of Elma and the City of Elma.

The City of Elma on April 25 filed a civil complaint in Grays Harbor County Superior Court.

The dispute is difficult to fully understand without an understanding in public utilities, but summed up simply, the city has a main line that runs out to the area of Bayview Redi Mix. From that main line is another line that services multiple properties including Bayview, a trailer park, and some other properties.

“If you see a power pole running down the road and that power line at X it goes to your house, and then down a little bit further at Y it goes to my house — you ever see where it goes from X to Y without continuing down the power pole?” Bayview Redi Mix co-owner Marvin Prince explained. “The city is double billing for water. It’s a convoluted mess. I don’t know what else I can really say, and I don’t want to say too much without speaking to counsel because obviously I’ve got a lawsuit up against me because I stopped paying the water bill.”

According to Elma’s city attorney Dan Glenn, the Elma Mobile Park was developed by the former owner of Redi Mix. The park later was sold. Elma Mobile Park has never been billed directly by the city for water use.

“Its usage is calculated as an element of the Redi Mix bill and until relatively recently, for decades, that total bill representing the usage of the Redi Mix directly in its operations and the Park has been paid by Redi Mix,” Glenn wrote in an email to The Vidette.

According to Glenn’s filing in Superior Court, the city had received checks from the park forwarded by Bayview Redi Mix; however, those checks were not assigned to Elma by Bayview and they remain uncashed.

In October 2017, according to the civil complaint, all payments stopped for the water bill.

One thing seems clear — both the city attorney and Bayview are unhappy about the situation devolving into a civil complaint.

“It is an unfortunate situation,” Glenn wrote in his email.

“It’s a convoluted mess we have tired to fix to all parties’ satisfaction and we just can’t get to any common ground,” Prince said.

Bayview Lumber is not associated with Bayview Redi Mix.