Letter to the Editor: Rate payer not happy about Ronald Wastewater budget
Sunday, December 2, 2012
To the Editor:
I recently sent this letter to Ronald Wastewater:
I have recently read some points on your budget, and as a rate paying customer, I am not happy. I have contacted you and even county council members regarding the high rates I pay in the past, and I received no understanding and no declaration of an effort to review your rate structures. I am one person who is very conscious of my water consumption and hence my sewer usage, and I pay as much as a house with 6 people who don't think twice about how much is going down the drain.
When I read about budget items such as:
- $111,500 for monthly mailers (information that is accessible on your website, could be included on the already printed bill, or at the very least, on regular, nonglossy paper mailed with the bill)
- monthly free community lunches
- $4000 for a conference room upgrade (seems pretty luxurious)
- $2000 for an administrative chair (you can find highly ergonomic and comfortable chairs for much less)
- and more....
I feel taken advantage of. There is no equity for rate payers while the administration is receiving many. Why can't you give up some unnecessary items and luxuries to give relief to conscious consumers by implementing a usage based billing system?
Alisha Leviten
Shoreline
Posts
3 comments:
It would be challenging for Ronald Wastewater District to charge for actual usage.
You can't meter sewage... And Ronald Wastewater has no idea how much water we are consuming either (that data is collected by SPU and/or Shoreline Water District and is not shared with RWD to the best of my knowledge.)
So while I completely agree that a $2000 chair is ridiculous.... I don't think you'll see usage based billing any time soon.
People, please read the budget on their website before saying untrue claims as to what it actually says. The $2,000 is obviously for the whole office for 2013, not for one chair. This is not luxurious by any stretch. If you have ever been to their office you would realize that any claim of luxuries does not apply. I read an explaination from Ronald about the newsletters and they say that not everybody gets a bill but may still want to get info from them, ie; renters, nursing home residents, etc. and the same goes for a computer. Not everybody can afford a computer or internet service. It seems like a reasonable explaination. Maybe every month is excessive, every couple of months would do, but it doesn't seem to warrant the kind of outrage I've been reading. Just my opinion.
What I'm curious about though is why is there seems to be such an organized campaign against Ronald lately. It's all I read on on here. Ronald sewer district is one of the things I like best about Shoreline. I really like this city and I think the City does a lot of good things too. If you think that having your sewer bill tied to your water bill is a great idea then you haven't lived in Seattle or Bellevue. I have and my bills were much, much higher than Ronald. And I like to think that I am pretty conservative with water (I even use rain barrels) but I think most people would regret having their sewer tied to water usage. You use more than you think. Especially in the summer if you garden like me. My sewer bills used to be huge in Seattle during the summer, even with rain barrels. Plus it's easier for me to budget because I know exactly what my bill will be every month. It's just me and my husband so I understand the notion that somehow a large family next door is getting away with something by using more water and paying the same, but I would still want to keep a flat bill. $11.15 a month is cheap. Be careful what you wish for.
Also, we had a sewer backup last year and the people at Ronald helped us through the process of getting it fixed when we had no idea what to do and saved us a lot of money from repairs that were not necessary. They were so responsive, knowledgeable and helpful when I needed them the most, that it bothers me seeing all the negative stuff on here. It seems unjust and unfair somehow.
I guess there is a little circle of people who have developed a form letter and are using the same talking points. It would have been nice if these same people had been so vigilant when the city hall was being built for $31 million.
Let's see, the cubicles and system furniture for the city cost $375,000. The telephone system, $275,000. The audio/visual system, $284,000. The CAFETERIA KITCHETTE? It was only $20,000 -- where was Sis Polin when we needed her? Signage - $8,000.
Oh, and in last year's audit, the Washington State Auditor flagged the city for spending over $330,000 in a no bid contract on the solar panels on a debarred contractor in violation of the Davis-Bacon Act guidelines using Stimulus funds -- oops. But I guess there are too many zeros in these figures, anything under $5,000 is too much for this letter writing crew to pay attention to, but they are willing to let hundreds of thousands of dollars in city spending go right by them without question.
David, how do you know if Ronald Wastewater is able to charge on actual usage or not? Ever hear of SCADA? Why does the city charge a flat rate on surface water utility to each single-family homeowner and give the school district a giant break for the past ten years? We already pay the highest property taxes to the school district in King County, they should be ready to pay their surface water utility bill but instead the city and school district thinks everyone else should subsidize them.
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