Community Corner
You Can Object to the Proposed Utility Rate Increases
Palo Alto is proposing significant increases in the rates for water and sewage. If enough customers object, the increases will not be allowed.
You should have received a notice in your utility bill in late April or early May notifying you of a planned water rate increase of 17 percent and sewage increase of 13 percent. These hikes are partly to pay for upgrading the Hetch Hetchy Water System, and the bill stated that those objecting can formally protest.
It’s extremely unlikely that most customers pay any attention to rate increase notices, or bother to protest, so the increases are likely to happen. However, I hope that thousands of people will object formally so that the City Council will have to think carefully about actually imposing these increases. You can file your objections to any or all of the rate increases with the city clerk at city.clerk@cityofpaloalto.org or donna.grider@cityofpaloalto.org. Time is running out, as objections must be filed by 7 p.m. June 13.
If a majority of customers file formal complaints, the increase automatically dies.
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There are several parts of the increases that I particularly object to. One is the monthly fee just to connect to the water service. When it was added several years ago, I strongly objected, but very few others bothered. So now we all pay $5 a month for the privilege of having city water service. And now they want to raise it to $10 a month, which is totally absurd. Another change that probably slipped past almost everyone is reducing the lowest rate of the lowest users, which is up to 700 cubic feet/month, to up to 600 cubic feet/month, a 14 percent reduction. It will be partly offset by an 8.6 percent rate reduction on the lowest use.
On the surface, it appears that low users get a rate cut, but in fact, it is an increase for anyone using more than 600 cubic feet/month. The average rate increase will be 17 percent per residential customer.
Find out what's happening in Palo Altowith free, real-time updates from Patch.
In comparison to the rate increases for homeowners, businesses will get a rate cut. Supposedly that is because they now pay more than their fair share of overall costs, so their rates must be cut. Naturally that will dump more expenses and higher rates on homeowners.
However, if there are enough protests, this rate change will be killed. I filed my objections to the $5 increase in connection fee, reduction in volume for lowest rates, and the rate increase for moderate usage homeowners. I hope many others also will file formal objections so we can avoid these unreasonable water rate increases.
