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Thank you Wilma, Ed and Chuck for your responses…and to those of you who chose to contact the WCC directly.
(Ed, Chuck and Wilma responded to the Our Park website. If you would like to read their responses click on this link www.ourpark.info/memberpage.htm …then using the buttons on the far left, click on “Water Conservation” to read Wilmas response. Click on “How do we fix it?”, to read Chuck and Eds
responses, Oct. 16 & Oct. 7)
We would love to answer each question and address each concern, but our response would need to be about 30-40 pages long! …boring! …zzzzzzz … so, for now, we will start with the most common asked question and concern.
Please try to remember everything we are presenting here is just part of the beginnings of our research. None of this is written in stone and we are still looking for feedback.
There seems to be a concern and/or belief that if we get water meters:
1) Our water rates would go up.
2) Our water bill would no longer be paid as a budgeted item in our TAD’s, therefore assessing ourselves more money.
Wrong & Wrong
The Santa Cruz City Water Dept. would continue to read our two meters at the front of the park and send those two bills to our park office…just as they always have. The water dept has no interest in reading our meters individually (which would hike the price up considerably) and they are quite pleased to know that PPMC is looking into the possibility of sub metering our park.
Several studies have been done on sub metering situations like ours and have proved that once each individual is responsible for their own water use, water consumption is reduced an average of 20%-30%… even as much as 40% in some cases!
PPMC would continue to be billed at the same rate as usual. Our current rate is $4.86 per unit of water. This water rate has been in effect since the beginning of 2008.
A “unit” of water is 100 cubic feet, or a little easier to put into perspective, 1 unit = 748 gallons of water.
Using our PPMC 2008 & 2009 water bills for our example, PPMC, “on average” is billed for a about 1,128,576 gallons …YUP…over a million gallons per month! (1,509 units @ $4.86 = $7,334 per month) Divide that by 391 allotments = $18.76 per allotment, per month. There is also an additional fee called a “ready to serve charge”. This costs us a flat rate of $634.18 per month, divide by 391 = $1.62.
The water + the ready to serve charge, per allotment, per month = $20.38 (on average)
The annual average (2008 & 2009) total water bill for our park = $95,602.89.
All PPMC members are billed through our TAD’s and pay an equal share of the annual water bill amount = about $245 per year, per allotment. Yes, that is quite a bargain! …although there are a few variables to consider:
1) If we were to sub meter our park, this amount could come down by 20% - 30%…we could possibly use the savings, or at least some of it, to pay for the meters and their installation.
2)The meters would allow us to divi up the bill porportionately based on each allotments actual use.
3) We also have to consider the added expense of reading the meters and the added labor for billing. We are looking into the pros and cons of reading the meters as little as twice a year, once every quarter or as often as every other month. So far, there doesn’t seem to be any big advantage to reading the meters every month. This “billing” would still be part of our TAD’s.
4) Is $245 per allotment, per year REALLY a bargain? We don’t know how many people this amount of water is servicing. Santa Cruz City Water Dept. says the average use of water per person, per day is 60 gallons….more on this later…
We think the folks that read this web site are a bit shy…? Come on, we REALLY want to hear from you, we have a lot of work to do and need to know your concerns, etc…please hit the comment button below and we’ll do our best to research your input and answer your questions. If you don’t want your name mentioned, just let us know.
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