The Whole Ugly Truth on the Proposed Water Rates

Here's the latest Ledger article that was posted on the Ledger's web page Sunday, April 10th, at 11:43 PM about the meeting to be held Monday, April 11th at 5:00 PM.

Polk City Council Set to Vote On Refinancing Plan

The article states,"The new rate schedule will not affect the monthly water and sewer bills for vast majority of Polk City's roughly 2,100 residential customers. "We are absolutely not raising rates," Cloud said."

The residential rates may not be changing, yet, but looking at the other changes proposed, Commercial rates will be going up if you can figure out their complex calculations attempting to hide this fact.  In the Restaurant example they used containing 50 seats, the ERC value they arrive at is 20 ERC's, or Equivalent Residential Connection, a base estimated consumption figure being used for all utility connections.  Single family homes are figured at 1 ERC, so this rate schedule is estimating that an establishment of this type and size will consume 20 times the water and have 20 times the wastewater that a typical single family home would use.  In this restaurant example, the base rate for water service without any usage fees will be $341.80 (20 x $17.09), then add the base rate for sewer without any usage $681.40.  We are already up to a monthly base rate bill of $1023.20 and this is not even charging for usage yet.  The Commercial customers are going to get slapped hard.  How is this new rate schedule going to bring new business into town?  How are existing businesses going to be able to continue to survive with all the other hardships they have with the down economy?  What is to stop these businesses from moving to Auburndale or Lakeland? If Polk City's businesses leave, how does the city expect to attract new residential growth?  Without growth of any kind, how are the residential rates going to drop at all?  These residential rates will be forced up since someone will have to pay for all this debt the city is planning to add, plus the tremendous burden of the additional millions in interest on this extremely long term loan.

It is also not clear what the penalties are if a single family residence exceeds the average of 1 ERC or estimated daily water use of 300 gallons per day (GPD)  and the new lower 250 GPD for sewer, instead of the previous 270 GPD for sewer. This comes out to 9,000 gallons of water usage for a 30 day month.  If your household has several people or you water your lawn using your regular household water since you are in an area without sewers, so therefore do not need an irrigation meter, the 9,000 gallons for 30 days can be easily exceeded.  Will the ERC of this household be increased with occasional bills using over the average ERC or will the penalties be excessive?  This issue is not clearly addressed.  On page 10 of Ordinance 2011-1277 under Other Criteria (C.) states,  "If deemed necessary by the City, the estimated sewer demands and corresponding connection charges shall be redetermined based on actual usage when the development is at very near full/maximum occupancy/use.  If the redetermined use and ERC value is larger than originally computed, the additional connection charge will be collected from the user/developer.  The town shall have the right to redetermine the connection charges and require the customer to pay any additional charges."  This leaves the public wide open to be charged whatever the city wants to for not only the monthly bills overages, but also possibly going back and charging more for impact fees that were collected at a lower rate at the time the original permit was pulled.  There are no consumer protection laws to prevent the municipalities from charging whatever they want for these services.  Consumer protections are only in place when the utilities are provided and owned by a privately held company.

In addition to raising commercial rates, many existing fees are also going up.  For instance, if you get a crazy utility bill, as many already have in the past and continue to get, that shows your consumption jumped 10 fold for no explicable reason, instead of it costing you $25 for the city to check your meter, it will now cost you $150.  A refund will only be issued if the city can prove that it was their error.  With the excuses given in the past about some mystery person using your water without your knowledge, or a mysterious leak that miraculously fixes itself the following month, but the city is not able to reproduce the problem or prove that their meters are at fault, what do you think the likelihood is that anyone challenging a water bill will ever get a refund of their $150, or see any kind of correction in their inflated bill?  With previous blog posts showing proof that the city is charging for far more water than is ever pumped out of the ground, it is obvious the city's water meter and billing system has some major issues.  Some of these problems may have been fixed since then, but who will be able to afford to even challenge these errors now?

The poorest people who are having a hard enough time paying their bills are also being targeted with these new fee increases.  The reconnection charge is going up from $50 to $55. This fee goes up to $100 if the reconnection is outside normal business hours, which we all know have been cut back.  The city is notorious for shutting off service over long weekends. The delinquent charge is going up from $5 to $10.50.  There is also a brand new Premises Visit charge of $40 that will likely be charged when someone comes to shut off the meter.

Other new fees include an Illegal Water Use fine, plus actual usage charge of $500 per event, plus usage at applicable rates.  Account Transfer Fee Charge of $15, RV Dump Fee of $5, Grease Trap Surcharge for service costs and inspection of $65, plus contractor's fee.

To add insult to injury, the wording of this new utility service contract is targeting the long term residents of Polk City who have water wells which have been grand-fathered into the system.  So much for the grand-father clause. The city is now claiming that the water coming out of the ground at these wells, just down the road from their own city wells is so different that it will contaminate the city's water system and therefore must be taken off-line and these residents will be forced onto city water.  If this contamination truly is a risk, the likely contamination cause is the water originating from the improperly treated sewer water being sprayed out of the city's own failing water treatment plant.  GO FIGURE!!

The article clearly states that the main cause of all the city debt is the Mt. Olive Utility System.  If the county is willing to take it back and forgive the debt that goes along with it, why in the world is the city not taking this generous offer?!!

PLEASE MAKE YOUR CONCERNS HEARD AT TONIGHT'S 5:00 PM SPECIAL MEETING!!