Hello Water Group, I took some much needed time away from the water issues and enjoyed the holidays with my family. I hope you were all able to relax and enjoy the holidays too. I'm back and here is the latest update…. Upcoming SCVWD Board Meeting is next Tuesday, January 10, 2017 at 6:00pm - please plan on attending (details below) SCVWD – Santa Clara Valley Water District (Water Wholesalers to SJWC) -View Video from the SCVWD Board meeting on December 13, 2016. Click on Agenda 5.1 http://scvwd.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=3&clip_id=1398 Darin Taylor, SCVWD Senior Project Manager, presented PowerPoint presentation 5.1. Planning for Fiscal Year 2017-18 Groundwater Production Charges https://scvwd.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=4800248&GUID=87B632EA-F160-4BBA-8698-57B513AB70AF -On December 13, 2016, we spoke to the 7 Board of Directors (Barbara Keegan, Richard Santos, Linda LeZotte, Nai Hsueh, Tony Estremera, John Varela and Gary Kremen) and asked them to address the following concerns: 1. Please consider how you can reduce your proposed rate increases which start at 19.7% in FY2017 and proceed to 16.7% ETC. San Jose Water Company is blaming SCVWD for the rates. We the ratepayers are not receiving pay increases of 19% + per year. a. Please kill any undecided projects. Can the district kill any undecided projects to save the ratepayers money? b. Please make sure that when projects are presented to you, that you have a presentation of A grade, B Grade and C Grade. The ratepayers are not looking for bells and whistles or gold plated projects. We want the best project at the best price. Can the district instill an A Or B project presentation from Staff; and approval process to save the taxpayers money? c. If the district is not collecting impact fees from developers on the new High Density that is popping up throughout this valley, I would request that you do so. Maybe it is time that the District do so, to relieve the burden of costs being passed along to us residents that have supported this valley for some time. Can the district levy and collect impact fees from the high density developers (say housing units over 10) and lower the proposed budget rate increase to retailers d. Can the district eliminate the open space subsidy that is being paid to many of the “agricultural” owners which are selling land for High Density. Maybe make them plant for several years (to be determined) prior to handing out a subsidy. This will save the district money and the ratepayers as well. Can the district do this? e. Does the district need to do every CIP project listed on the FY2017-2018 Annual? Can the district prioritize what is really needed to provide clean, safe, Economical water to the ratepayers to increase our water source? How many ratepayers will the project touch? What will happen if a particular project is cut? Does the project increase water source? Can or does the board ask these questions prior to project approval? f. Why does the district give taxpayers money away to a firm that the district wanted to audit last year, RMC Water and Environment? Why would the district award a project to the the interim chief’s operating officer’s spouse? Can the district institute a rule on Nepotism when awarding contracts? If not, why? 2. In light of how SJWC has “interpreted" SCVWD restrictions, can the district please request a meeting with the CEO and 2015 Lobbyist to SCVWD, Richard Roth, to understand why they have continued with penalties as well as the numerous other stipulations on ratepayers mentioned above. They are “blaming” such on the district when asked. I have attached below a copy of a seeking alpha commentary by an analyst. You might briefly look at the bolded items noted in the article. As you can see, SJWC is not loosing money with reduced water usage as the SCVWD claims to be happening. Ask the CEO, how it is fair to exclude businesses, base allocation usage on an average vs personal 2013 usage, reduce billing tier allotments by 77% and continue to levy penalties while other agencies in the valley are not? Can the SCVWD Board of Directors meet with Roth and ask these questions as SJWC is “blaming SCVWD” for such high bills? Is it fair to have the burden be assumed by single family property owners? After all, all SCVWD retailers are paying the same wholesale amount from SCVWD. -We are scheduled to have a follow up meeting with two SCVWD Board Members, Nai Hsueh – District 5 and Gary Kremen – District 7 and two SCVWD employees, Rachel Gibson – Local & Regional Government Relations and Darin Taylor – Senior Project Manager, on January, 12, 2017 to discuss additional questions that arose after our first meeting last month. -We need to continue to meet with the 7 SCVWD board members and convince a minimum of 4 of them that these continued extreme rate increases are not sustainable by the community. We cannot do this by ourselves. We need your help and presence in letting SCVWD know that these continued increases are not taken lightly and are not sustainable. -There is another SCVWD board meeting on Tuesday, January, 10, 2017 at 6:00pm. It is very important that we attend ALL of the board meetings and continue to let the board know these rate increases are not sustainable. Please attend and consider speaking for 3 minutes. If you are not comfortable speaking, please consider addressing the board and state that you agree with the statements made by others that do speak. SCVWD, 5750 Almaden Expressway, San Jose, CA 95118 Agenda Item #2.8 - Preliminary Fiscal Year (FY) 2017-18 Groundwater Production Charges Analysis January 10, 2017 Board of Directors Agenda - https://scvwd.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=493031&GUID=36268CA6-36C5-49DC-9606-99F7A09FA07D Board meeting dates - Please mark your calendars January 10, 2017 February 14, 2017 March 21, 2017 April 11, 2017 April 19, 2017 - Water Commission meeting April 25, 2017 May 9, 2017 - New Budget with groundwater production charges & CIP will be adopted. SCVWD rate increases Approved Increases FY16 - 19.7% FY17 - 19.9% Future Proposed Increases FY18 - 16.7% FY19 - 15.5% FY20 - 14.5% SJWC – San Jose Water Company (Subsidiary of the holding company SJW Group. SJW Group is NOT regulated by the CPUC) -Ginny (water group member) and myself met on 12-5-16 and again 12-12-16 and again on Thursday (1-5-17) with John Tang (SJWC VP Government Relation), Wes Owens (SJWC Director Regulatory Affairs), and James Lindsay (Saratoga City Manager) to discuss and analyze all line items on our bills. It has been a slow and arduous process and we still have not completed the bill analysis but have agreed to continue our questions via email. One important item that was confirmed by both John Tang and Wes Owens is that Ginny's analysis model of the July-August water bills IS ACCURATE! SJWC agrees that it charged a typical customer (30 CCF/2 months) 71% more in 2016 than in 2013. The typical customer was under the 2016 drought allocation so incurred no drought surcharge. A customer who used more than 32 CCF in July and August would have been charged a drought surcharge, and such a customer would have seen an increase in the water bill far greater than 71%. Regarding SJWC's unfair billing policies...John said that no matter how SJWC structures their bills, they would not be able to please all of their customers. It was clear that SJWC has no intention of changing the drought allocation/surcharge program for the duration of the current drought. SJWC is comfortable with the program's structure and, more critically, the CPUC strongly favors the drought allocation/surcharge program as it is currently implemented. We need to be prepared to make our voices heard when SJWC devises the allocation/surcharge program at the onset of the NEXT drought. To that end, Ginny proposed an allocation/surcharge program that allows each customer to choose one of two options for determining that customer's drought allocation. Option 1 - uses the average water usage of all residential customers to determine water conservation allotments (which is how they currently structure the bill for all residential customers). This would benefit the customers who had already been conserving prior to the drought or who do not have outside irrigation requirements. Option 2 - uses the individual customer's pre-drought average water usage to determine water conservation allotments. This would benefit the customers who have individual needs based on household and irrigation requirements. Under such a structure all residential customers would be required to conserve at the targeted percentage, but each customer would be able to choose his own allocation method. This would be a fair billing structure. I proposed that since SCVWD is responsible for 38% of our water bill, that SJWC should show these charges as a separate line item on our bill. Currently, every three years when a new General Rate Case is approved by the CPUC, SJWC takes the 3 individual SCVWD line items on our bill and rolls them into our tier rates. At that point, the customer has no way of tracking what portion of our bill is generated from SCVWD rate increases. John indicated that currently SJWC occasionally includes a pie chart in the bill which depicts the breakdown of charges. In addition to suggesting that the SCVWD charges be displayed on the bill, a number of other recommendations were proposed that would improve the transparency of the SJWC water bill. -The Advice Letter No. 498 that SJWC filed with the CPUC on November 15, 2016, was approved. https://sjwater.s3.amazonaws.com/files/documents/ADV498Web.pdf This means, effective 1-1-17, our rates increased again. This is a 3.83% revenue increase for SJWC. Our Service Charge went from $47.95 to $50.04 for 3/4" meter and our tier rates increased as follows: 0-3ccf - from $4.0581 to $4.2210 4-18ccf - from $4.509 to $4.6900 Over 18ccf from $4.9599 to $5.1590 -SJWC will be filing their next General Rate Case with the CPUC for increases for 2019, 2020 & 2021 in March 2017. We need to be ready to protest these increases. CPUC – California Public Utilities Commission -Mary (Water Group Member) spoke with Richard Rauschmeier, CPUC Office of Ratepayer Advocates and he is willing to meet with us regarding SJWC's General Rate Case and the process CPUC/ORA has in place for approving these rates. Possible Lawsuit -I have no new updates on this front. If any of you have any news to share, please let me know and I will update the group. There may be information worth updating the group in the coming weeks. One member of our group is looking into Santa Clara Supervisor Mike Wasserman's ownership in SJW. If any of you are interested in doing research into SJWLand to understand how the money is moving between SJWC and SJWLand, I encourage it. Again, SJWLand purchased millions of dollars of commercial real-estate in Tennessee and Arizona and 7 acres owned by SJWC and/or SJWLand in downtown San Jose across from Diridon Station is currently being developed into multi housing units. Where did they get the money? Why isn't this money being used for infrastructure? A Water Group Member started a Facebook page and is pursuing taking back our water. https://www.facebook.com/PushBack-on-SJWC-354639318245219/ Press -I was contacted by Elizabeth Douglass at InquireFirst https://inquirefirst.org/ a non-profit news organization last month. I followed up with her earlier this week. I have not heard back from her yet. She is doing an in-depth examination of the nation’s deteriorating water infrastructure and water quality protections, with an emphasis on issues beyond those highlighted by the Flint, Mich., water disaster.
 Her first stories will be released in the fall. And she is doing a story on Investor Owned Water Utilities purchasing local water municipalities and how this is a dangerous trend for our nation’s future. She hopes to have it published in December sometime. She will let me know when it will be published and I will, in turn, inform you. I was contacted by Jennifer Wadsworth with Metro News San Jose on 1-5-17 and she wants to investigate SJWC. I'll keep you posted. There have been some interesting water articles written recently. I have posted them on my website. http://sjwfacts.weebly.com/articles.html Rita Benton