By the Sierra Madre Watchman, Special for the Sierra Madre Weekly
The City of Sierra Madre raised the water rates for two basic reasons. They said so because the City would have to buy water and that would cost $260.00/per acre foot. They also said that $945,000 of long-term debt was paid for by the water bill income. They also raised the water meter and sewer charges just to make sure that all bases are covered with these increases.
The purchase of the water with cash dollars has no basis in fact since the City has not written a check to pay for any water as yet. The truth is the water is acquired by the use of credits that were paid by property taxes going directly to the San Gabriel Metropolitan Water District over many years in the past. Since this is the first time of need, there are thousands of credits that have accumulated which also covers the water district’s operating expenses.
The long-term debt is combined with other long-term debt and a wire transfer is made to the Bank of New York Bond Trustee and has been charged to the Administration Department, which is where it should be. The City, as a whole, is the liable party to these many long-term debts and not a particular department of the City.
Is the real reason that the City increased the water rates because they first started a conservation program of water use and the people responded for a greater reduction than they were asked to do. This reduced the income to the City by more than $13M. This is probably the major reason for raising the rates and not simply a so-called water shortage.
The truth is, the operating costs of the Water Department have gone down due to not using the water pumps. This results in large savings on electricity and chemical treatments.
If the City Government were to be truthful to themselves, then they would cancel one or both of the rate increases of this year and reduce all the other restrictions that they have imposed on the people.
Try putting themselves in the position of serving the people at the lowest cost to the customers.
TO THY-SELF BE TRUE!
Sierra Madre Watchman
Featured image from Morguefile.com.
Source Beacon Media News