Neighbor Charles Pool’s letter got printed in the Times Dispatch today:
Proposed water and sewer hikes are outrageous
Editor, Times-Dispatch:
While commuters are protesting the proposed $1 monthly service charge for the E-ZPass, there is little notice as the city of Richmond quietly hikes the minimum monthly service charge for water and sewer to $49.40 per month.
How many cars would use the toll roads if those monthly service charges were raised to $49.40 a month? Unlike the toll roads, water service is a necessity and the city knows that no one will be digging a well in his backyard to avoid the rate hike.
We don’t have the option of turning off the water, but we can vote. Every candidate for city office in this election cycle should be challenged to explain why Richmond’s outrageous, minimum water and sewer bill is the highest in the country.
Charles Pool.
Richmond.
At least one other Charlie and City Council candidate is speaking up:
Let’s Reward Conservation of Our Resources
An opinion piece appeared in the Times Dispatch on May 24, 2012 addressing what we are charged for water and sewer in Richmond. After reading Scott Burger’s piece over many times, I tried to write a blog post in reference to the minimum fee method of charging us for the water we do or do not use. As I tried over and over, I realized that the only fair thing to do was to share the opinion piece with you, my supporters and potential supporters, in its original form.
It is simply unfair for a person who uses 1 CCF of water per month to pay an amount equal to or slightly less than the person who uses 10 CCF per month. People should be rewarded for their conservation, not punished for it.
Editor’s note: This does not constitute an endorsement of Diradour (…But what are other candidates saying?)
If you think our roads are bad you should see the water infrastructure. I’m talking crumbling stone tubes full of baby skeletons trapped in rusty shopping carts.
How about raising the per-unit cost to encourage conservation? My bill is the same no matter how much water I use.
I hope any increase will include a study of how it affects different types of customers. I lived in Charlottesville during a severe drought, and the city chose to keep the rate the same for the first X amount of water, and double the rate for more than that. This emergency rate was designed to have less impact on low-income customers and more on customers who use water for more discretionary uses.
Melissa has good ideas there. What we need is a water/sewer rate structure similar to Henrico’s. The minimum service charge is about a third of Richmonds. There is a discount on the volume rate on the first 6 ccf of water/sewer. Above 6 ccf the customer has to pay a premium volume rate (which would make up the revenue difference from the low minimum service charge).