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City of Palmdale and Palmdale Water District in hot water over rates

Posted by: Maven on July 12, 2009 at 7:22 am

From the Antelope Valley Press:

Well, the city of Palmdale and the Palmdale Water District remain in hot water over water rates. The city failed to get a restraining order to stop collection of the largest water rate increase in the district’s history.

It’s a big increase. If you were a small business with a $100 water bill a month or two back, it is probably double now. If you are a senior, living on a fixed income, an extra $30 or $40 a month is a very big deal. The only thing achieved in Wednesday’s hearing was to relieve the water district of some cash flow problems, but not enough, probably.

Here is what the judge found:

Judge Conrad Aragon ruled Wednesday in favor of the water district, refusing Palmdale’s request for a preliminary injunction on a recent water rate hike that adds from 65% to more than 140% to customers’ monthly bills.

The rate hike was approved May 13 by a 3-2 board vote despite vocal protests of more than 200 customers who packed the water district board room, spilling out into the hall and a side yard. Before making the decision, Palmdale Water District General Manager Randy Hill warned customers if rates did not increase, the district would face major financial problems that would be cured by defaulting on district bills, laying off employees or filing bankruptcy.

Read more from the Antelope Valley Press by clicking here.

July 12, 2009 · Filed Under Southern California

Comments

5 Responses to “City of Palmdale and Palmdale Water District in hot water over rates”

  1. The week that was 7/6-7/12/2009 | on July 12th, 2009 11:52 pm

    [...] “Palmdale failed to get a restraining order to stop collection of the largest water rate increase in the district’s history.” Antelope Valley Press via Aquafornia [...]

  2. shirley sims on October 19th, 2009 7:48 am

    when your water bill goes from 49.00 to 300.00 there is a real problem we live on fix incomes and if you check our bill only once was it a 100.00 now for the last 2 months bill is totaling to 669.00 that is not fair to any one the city of palmdale is study ripping off its coustomers we should not be the ones to suffer for their bad management. We need new and better people to run our water districts.

  3. Eric Tompkins on November 5th, 2009 9:56 am

    Conservation is the name of the game here. My water bill is lower than its ever been, with last months being $53. We did it using “smart irrigation techniques.” By changing our watering schedule and installing rotating sprinkler heads, we have been able to keep our home “green” at a much lower price, even with the water rate increase.

  4. Carol Caldwell on November 13th, 2009 1:56 pm

    Our water rates have doubled despite all our efforts to conserve water. We spent quite a bit of money changing out all our sprinklers and installing rotating sprinkler heads as suggested. We kept our watering down to 3x a week in August and 1/2 of September, and then switched to 1x a week when our bill was double the normal amount. The next bill was still over the Tier 1 amount! We already stopped watering our back yard last summer, which is now all dirt. The only possible way to stay at tier 1 is to stop watering everything and letting our front yard die as well. Then we will get billed by Palmdale for not up keeping our landscaping. We are dammed if we do and dammed if we don’t. Also, the fact that the water district drops the allotment of water by 9,724 gallons in one month, from 07/20/09-08/17/09 to 08/17/09-09/16/09, still in our summer months, is outrageous!!! And all without any way of its customers knowing about this allotment reduction ahead of time. It’s impossible to know what your bill will be each month. I hope the City of Palmdale prevails on its lawsuit. This is “criminal”, especially to do this at a time when a great deal of our population is out of work due to our economic downturn!

  5. Utility Consultants on November 25th, 2009 9:52 am

    check this out:
    http://www.stepwiseadvisors.com/conservation-doesnt-always-pay

    Conservation can also to rate increases!

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