Fwd: Windermere Utility Rate Increase (petitions/ meetings/ negotiation/ hearing/ etc.)

Forward to blog.

Rod Reyna <rodreyna@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 14:08:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: Rod Reyna <rodreyna@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Windermere Utility Rate Increase (petitions/meetings/negotiation/hearing/etc.)
To: Bill Jasura <bjasura@swwc.com>

Mr. Jasura,

Thank you for calling me back today, per my message left last week with District Manager Tony Elmer at 335-7580, inviting your organization to our PfCONA Neighborhood Leader Roundtable held last night. I'm sorry that a representative could not attend. This was on our agenda and neighborhood leaders, area residents, mayor, city manager, a city councilperson, police chief, city information coordinator, and Rep. Strama's chief of staff attended meeting and various attendees participated in related discussion and/or offered information.

As I mentioned, three out of the 15 neighborhoods represented last night live in your service area and spoke against the rate increase. They are joining with other impacted neighborhoods to submit protest letters (petitions) to TCEQ in order to request a hearing. It is our understanding that 16 Pflugerville area neighborhoods are affected by proposed rate increase and some may have been previously involved in 2001 rate increase negotiation.

You mentioned that you wish to host a large meeting at a school with neighborhoods involved or a series of meetings with individual neighborhoods to explain the rate increase. You also said that once permitted, you would wish to negotiate with neighborhood representantives ahead of time rather than be involved in a hearing process after rates go into effect in October (you said September would not be when an increase would go into effect), especially if it may involve crediting user's bills. You also said you would be willing to attend next PfCONA Town Meeting on August 14th at 7pm to introduce yourself and answer some questions.

You explained that reason for an amortized rate increase was to cover $20 million invested in system as well as electricity and chemical cost increases, etc. I mentioned that one resident last night said that his rate would appear to increase by 68% and you said that increase for residents would be about 40% unless their water requirements were higher. You also mentioned that business rate would increase about 50% and not 400% as was mentioned last night. You also said that the city wanted to make sure that any residents you served in city limits were provided for and that you would commit to buying 100 million gallons from city. I do not remember if you mentioned that would be annually. You said that was above and beyond any emergency water provided.

You said you needed a water tank constructed to help satisfy certain TCEQ requirements in regard to fire service needs. You said water purchased from another entity such as city was not part of TCEQ formula and that purchased water costs more than well water. You explained that a 100+ foot water tower, already approved, would be erected in an area behind CVS pharmacy and that it would not have any graphic/text on it unless city wanted to pay to put something on tower and maintain image/text.

Again, thank you for your time and feel free to pass on any additional, updated, or clarifying information so that PfCONA can share it with Pflugerville area neighborhoods and interested parties.

Rod Reyna, 626-2250

Chair, Pflugerville Council of Neighborhood Associations

http://www.pfcona.org/, info@pfcona.org

cc: Neighborhood Leaders (area stakeholders who have brought concerns to PfCONA about rate increase), PfCONA Executive Committee, Mayor, City Manager, Asst. City Manager, City Information Coordinator

Note: You said you wished for the following contact information to be passed on to neighborhood leaders so they would contact you back*:

Bill Jasura, VP Windermere Utility

Rate Increase Direct Line: 531-6287

Office Phone: 990-4322

bjasura@swwc.com

*You said there was no information at this time online for reference.