Council: Don’t waste our federal funding

 

Our old water treatment plant, still going strong, but slowly falling apart.  The new plant will produce the same amount, but will have room to expand, about 3 blocks behind that big red roof.

            In the July 13^th Daily Courier, we are told that the Council is thinking of using 3 million dollars, a good third of our federal Covid relief funding, to pay for two years of rate increases for the new water treatment plant, an average of $8 per month that would not be added to our bills.  Since we use more water than average, my family would benefit more than most. 

            But such a small benefit would be hollow and temporary, compared to reforming our rate system to pay for all our overhead with base rates and charging only marginal unit costs to our unit rates, the way we used to pay for water when this city was clean, green, beautiful and safe from wildfire.  It is better to take the debt payments off our rates entirely and charge us all but the 18% paid by the Urban Renewal District in our debt payment fee.

We were told, when the debt payment fee was passed, that it would never increase and would go away when the debt was paid.  We were not told that 22% of it would go onto our base and unit rates, where it increases by inflation every year and will never go away.

Some councilors, the Courier said, want to thank essential workers for staying on the job by giving them some federal money.  This is problematic.  Which jobs are essential and who holds them?  How do you find out?  Do the relative few who are paying attention apply and prove it?  It would only cause resentment, dividing residents into classes and paying only some. 

Any money you would give to essential workers would be little compared to what they would gain when you reform water and sewer rates, making it cheap to use water and free to use sewer, like we used to.  A lot of those essential workers are sharing housing and paying more than they should for water and sewer because of water-rationing unit rates.

Housing is what you should spend all that federal money on, starting with two cheap places to shower and sleep for those without secure shelter.  With a few million dollars, you could build a couple of large hostels that can house all our unsheltered residents.  They would be sustainable, because they would be cheap to use, not free.  When you reform our water and sewer rates, they will be more sustainable.

 

Speech to the Grants Pass City Council, 7-21-2021, published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com

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 Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener    541-955-9040    rycke@gardener.com