Your Sewer Repair Now Goes To General Budget-And They Both Smell

The City Council raised water rates 8.5 % then planned another increase of 12% next year! The reason for a cumulative increase of 20% over two years (then the CPI will be about 7%) is that the city has underfunded water repairs for many years. One might ask why this was allowed to happen, but I believe repairs were woefully needed. Much of our water delivery is one hundred years old and is leaking over 200 times per year.

But in a desperate fight to balance the budget the city council set up another entity to swap water increases instead of taxes that citizens won’t approve. The city and water company are two entities, they set up a third JPA or Joint Powers Authority which will effectively trade asset ownership for cash or rent.

The net effect is the city will pilfer the water budget and many of the needed projects will not get funded.

The deeper issue -- the city can charge what they want for water, sewer and trash, as a service, but he citizens keep saying no more taxes. Have we been taxed through the back door?