TOLEDO, OH (WTOL) - A billing issue has been resolved at central Toledo church after they already thought it was taken care of. This issue is connected to a story WTOL first told you about in December, when we helped the church get a cleanup done on their property.
WTOL was recently contacted a second time to figure out a billing issue with that cleanup and have now helped the small congregation save over $1,000 in cleanup fees.
Back in December, tons of trash and debris were illegally dumped in a lot owned by St. Stephen AME Church on City Park Avenue. To fix remove the garbage, the trustee called us and we were able to help the church get the area cleaned up.
"The next day by noon everything had been moved, but I didn't know who had done it," said Trustee Jacquelyn Mullin.
Turns out it was the city who cleared everything away. A few months later, Mullin received a bill from a collection agency saying she owed $1 to the Department of Inspection. Then she got another bill.
"It was over $1,000 and I knew the church couldn't manage that," said Mullin.
So she tried to figure out what was going on. Mullin called the collection agency, called the city, but made little headway.
Then she called Call 11 For Action and we contacted the city, who says the bill was a mistake.
"If somebody's the victim of illegal dumping, were going to talk to them and we're going to make sure that it gets marked 'no bill.' We want to make sure that we take care of that. In this case, it was just that box didn't get checked," said Commissioner of Code Enforcement Cindy Geronimo.
The mistake is a savings of more than $1,000 for the church, which is a huge relief for Mullin who was instrumental on the cleanup from the start.
"Thankful. The word is thankful. So I have to get in touch with everyone to let them know what has happened," said Mullin.
The city says to keep this from happening again, communication is key.
"They just need to call us. We are pulling out all stops. We want to do everything we can to help these neighborhoods, and to make sure they stay clean," said Geronimo.
Now that this is out of the way, the church plans to work with the land bank to get an abandoned house on their property torn down.