Letter: Can anybody at all explain the Montara Water rates?

Letter to the editor

By on Thu, November 8, 2007

So I have called the Montara Water and Sewer district and got no return phone call, and I then emailed Kathryn Slater-Carter and Scott Boyd, and nobody will answer my simple question.  My question was, "I got my tax bill, I pay ~$800 for the bond, and another ~$700 for another MWSD charge that is not explained anywhere.  What is this charge and how is it calculated?" 

Ms Slater-Carter and Mr Boyd offered to meet me for coffee to discuss instead of simply answering the question.  I don’t have time to go meet them as I work over the hill.  ~5 years ago, when I originally was told that the MWSD purchase was going to save me money, I thought, "great, I pay too much to Cal-Am" as the sales pitch was for rate hikes to be eliminated, or minimized by Cal-Am not selling to the German company.  Now, including my monthly charges (of which about $15.- to $20.-/month is water), I pay over $200 EACH MONTH!  10% of my total monthly bill is for the actual water.

I know that there has been talk recently of raising rates.  A few months ago, a polite woman was asking people to sign a petition at the post office one Saturday.  She said that one of the MWSD directors was yelling at her earlier that morning, telling her that she, "Was ruining everything".  All she asked me to do was to sign a petition to prevent sewer rates from going up 35% or something like that.  I don’t know how accurate her story was, but I do know that I’m paying way too much for water and sewer, so part or maybe all of her story was accurate. 

Can anybody explain why we all pay so much?  I can’t get any answers from the MWSD people.  How much are rates going to keep going up?  I also don’t want to hear that I can deduct the bond from my taxes as I still have to pay it.