David Christman via Facebook (August 27, 2016)

I was having a great day until my most recent $969.35 water bill showed up – let me preface this by saying we’ve lived in AV since 1991, so we do have mature landscaping. I totally get that we use more water and therefore have to pay more to have a lawn compared to those who have allowed their grass to die, or have found a way to use less than 32 units of water. We also had the GALL to plant a small garden too!!!! I did the grass for cash boondoggle a few years back, which resulted in a higher water bill after spending $7,500 in landscaping. What I’m struggling with now is the fact that we reduced our consumption by 22% (based on 2013, which is the baseline used) and was penalized with a $308.64 Drought Surcharge!!!! Keep in mind that we pay $134.17 in hookup fees and surcharges before we even drink our first glass of water. There is absolutely NO INCENTIVE for us to conserve water – the amount of the surcharge is not based on a reduction of water usage!!!! So I called AV Ranchos and got the most convoluted explanation of the drought surcharge imaginable – the truth of the surcharge is that those fees go directly to AV Ranchos to cover costs that they can’t cover due to low water usage by everyone else - nothing to HELP the drought, save the endangered snail darter etc. The drought surcharge goes straight to the bottom line of AV Ranchos – again blessed by the California Public Utilities Commission. Remember the Chris Shilling article that claimed that by Ranchos charging the City of AV full price for water and how that would help the citizens of AV not have to subsidize the golf course – I’m still waiting Chris!!!!

The bottom line is my $969.35 water bill by AV Ranchos would have been $305.47 in Hesperia, $290.50 in Victorville, and $218.50 in Palm Springs – a real desert community. Yet we still hear from a few AV Ranchos supplies clean water at reasonable rates, the city of AV doesn’t know anything about water, Ranchos is a private enterprise, these other cities get to spread costs around, blah blah blah. No spin, check it out for yourself, we’re getting HOSED in the name of water!!!!!

Time to flee CA………

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David Christman via Facebook