City Council will likely vote on rate hikes tonight - Monday, May 6.   Here are there email addresses and my request to put a maximum amount on the rate increase:

dhagele@healdsburg.gov, redwards@healdsburg.gov, akelley@healdsburg.gov, emitchell@healdsburg.gov, cherrod@healdsburg.gov

I'd like you to consider limiting the inherent unfairness in moving from a standard utility rate schedule to a tiered rate schedule.

Using the proposed rate system, imagine Fictitious Customers 1 and 2. Fictitious Customer 1 uses 1 unit of water per month while Fictitious Customer 2 uses 1000 units per month.   By 2027, Fictitious Customer 1 will experience a 36% increase in his cost of water while, with the proposed rate schedule, Fictitious Customer 2 will experience a 2154% rate increase.  I don't think it is the intent of the Council to cause anyone to suffer a rate increase of 2154% and I doubt anyone uses that much water but that doesn't make this thought experiment irrelevant.   Since current water users have made sometimes years or decades of life/property decisions with the expectation of flat rate water, it seems to me it is the duty of the City Council to put some limits on the amount of increase that the City can impose on their residents.  So the question is "How much of a maximum rate hike is acceptable for the City to impose on water customers?"

I ask the Council to come up with a maximum rate hike that they are willing to impose on any of their tiered rate customers and adjust the bracketing so that the top tier is the same as the lowest tier and constrain the maximum rate increases by adjusting the size of the brackets - or implement whatever strategy is required so that no one suffers excessively.