FROM: CITIZENS FOR CHANGE TO THE
MASTER WATER PLAN (CCMWP)
We
are a group of Greater Vernon residents who have joined together to assess the
staff driven requests for higher water rates to fund the long term capital
programs and to increase the reserves for future needs.
Our
group wants to ensure that the public will, expressed by the November 15
referendum, is upheld. At the GVAC meeting on January 22, we requested a
moratorium on all spending approval relating to the defeated referendum and
expressed our view that a new direction needed to be pursued. We are in the
process of preparing a presentation for the GVAC which will provide
recommendations for needed changes to the Master Water plan.
At
the January 22nd meeting of the GVAC, there
was no action taken on our request for a moratorium.
However we noted that the GVAC seemed to focus on defining mechanisms to defeat
or by-pass the negative result of the referendum, but they also acknowledged
that a new direction to the Master Water Plan was required. It appears that our
elected representatives are prepared to consider “back-door” funding that will
move RDNO pre-referendum programs forward by raising water rates to cover the
costs of the expenditures, under the cover of ‘reserves’, and to date without
public input.
Our
group is concerned that the budget debate scheduled for tomorrow morning will
proceed to set water rates, before we have an opportunity to present our
proposed new direction for the Master Water Plan, and then the taxpayer rate
will be locked in to commitments defeated by the water plan referendum. Water
rates for the same amount of drinking water in 2014 show that Greater Vernon
domestic water users pay $899.70, more than twice the Penticton rate of
$427.62, and triple the $291.98 in Kelowna, for
the same amount of water. From 2010 to 2014 the cost of a cu. meter of drinking
water has doubled for Greater Vernon water users.
Changes
to the billing structure mean that less of the water bill is from metered usage
and more is coming from arbitrary fixed front end charges.
Our
citizen’s group is again calling for a moratorium until the GVAC has an
opportunity to review our proposal. The next available opportunity for our
presentation is March 5 and we ask that all budget approvals supporting water
rate increases be suspended until that date, or we ask that a special meeting
of the GVAC be convened, to allow our elected representatives to be informed of
the proposed new direction to the Master Water Plan.
Contact
Information: Terry Mooney, temo@telus.net
or 250-542-2847
Eric Jackson, Janet Green, Wayne McGrath,
Klaus
Tribes, Maria Besso, Dennis Windsor,
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