More utility rate hikes
To the editor:
There is more than one way to skin a cat but it seems most of our council members have tunnel vision. To the residents that means we are going to be facing much higher utility bills in the near future. In fact that increase will be voted on in May. I guess the council members who will be coming up for reelection will be hoping that the voting public will forget by November. I intend to keep warning the votes about this.
Former Mayor Kempe came up with an idea that involves a different mechanism for funding. He advocated creating a utility district and charging every parcel in the district for the plants by way of a district assessment.
I did some calculations based on ERU’s. The Total Cost of The Kismet Plant is approximately $140 million in total including design, management. fees, construction, wells etc. ERU’s in The North Cape are almost 56,000. That would equate to $2,500for each ERU or $580 per year including interest on a property tax bill for five years. That’s merely $1.60 a day and the burden only falls on the shoulders of the people North of Pine Island Road. These are the same people who will need the capacity not the current users on the system.
Once the rate increases go into effect the rates will never come down. This is not a fair and equitable way to allocate the costs. Some users on the system will be paying for facilities or capacity they will never use. Currently most users on the system will fall into this category. The city has tried to justify that everyone should be but it doesn’t hold water. They say they need to shut down the water plants in the south for maintenance. I never heard of anyone building a new water plant so they can maintain another water plant. That’s ridiculous and more misinformation put out by the city.
There is one other alternative, that would be to sell the utilities and pay down the debt and privatize it. It would be regulated and we would have experts running it. We don’t appear to be able to run this ourselves without the prospect of huge rate increases each year. We need to get the utilities out of the hands of the city because it is too expensive and will only make it unaffordable to stay in Cape Coral.
Manager at risk and water first are the most expensive ways to deliver the utilities. It will disrupt the area twice and doesn’t accomplish what needs to be done from an environmental standpoint. We need to take the time to find a better more effective method to deliver the utilities not a more expensive method.
If we hook up everyone north of Pine Island Rd and SW-6 and SW-7 is there any guarantee that we will not see another proposed rate hike in the next five years? Has council asked the staff? Can the city guarantee that we will not see a request for another rate hike that is greater than the rate hike proposed in Mr. Day’s presentation within the next five years or so? Those questions were not answered Monday night. I suspect because the answer to each would be no. My suspicion is that we will get more rate hikes even if we hookup the north as well as SW-6 and SW-7.
John Sullivan
Cape Coral Minutemen