Highland City Hall — Local services in Highland

So frustrated with the willful, almost intentional, bureaucratic process and policy with which Highland City "serves" its' citizens. I own two homes in Highland, and just had a couple of guys show up on my property and turn off my water and stick a bright yellow notice on my door. Why? Because apparently my CC on file with their 3rd party billing provider had expired and so I'd missed a payment. I called the city a couple of months ago to provide the updated billing information but was directed to a 3rd party biller website that was super buggy and, apparently, didn't save my new payment info. So, off goes my water... I went outside to ask the guys what was up and was told "you have to pay your bill". Nice. I offered to pay whatever was owed right then and there. The response "we can't do that, we only shut it off and turn it on". And they left. I had to call the city, get a billing person on the phone, make a payment and update my card... which, by the way, she couldn't do. All she could do was refer me back to their 3rd party billing service (which I finally got updated, but won't know for sure if it's saved and working until the city goons show up to shut me off again, I guess). What an egregious waste of tax payer money. It's no wonder people trust their governments less and less. Where are the city leaders with any shred of business acumen? Why isn't anyone looking at this situation and saying "hey, we could save a lot of operating expense AND make Highland a better place to live by investing in an inexpensive auto-text service with text-to-pay functionality". And/or "hey, if we're paying to send TWO city employees to a residence to turn ONE bolt, why not send them with a mobile CC device to collect payment if possible and avoid an unnecessary shut-off and turn-on service call?" It's absurd and frustrating that Highland City, knowing it's citizens can't "shop" these services from private sector vendors, just allows them to be terrible at the expense of their citizens and tax payers. Someone on City Council should run on a platform "friction reduction for cost elimination".

EDIT Based on Response: 11 hours after I'd made payment over the phone with your billing office employee, and updated my auto-pay information on Xpress Pay, I received a bill due email from Xpress Pay for the full amount I'd just paid earlier that morning. That email also stated "Auto Pay...

Slow to respond and not easy to work with. We had two people paying on the same account and I believe if I didn’t catch it they wouldn’t have said anything. Pretty...

Love Highland City! What a wonderful group of people who are always willing to...