Put Sunrise Estates back in East Valley water system

As many local residents know, on Sept 2, 2010, the county commissioners voted to approve water rate increases for the five county water districts, in the Carson Valley. The water rate increase for the Fairgrounds District, which is comprised of four businesses (three county-owned and one contracted with the county) and Sunrise Estates (34 homes), has increased 319 percent.

To make that very simple to understand, if your average bill in the spring, summer or fall is $100 today, this next year the water bill will increase to $419. By the year 2014, that bill will be $1,090 (minimum a month).

Sunrise Estates was in East Valley Water District (with about 1,700 residences), until the last year or two, when we were moved into the Fairgrounds District, without many of us having received notice (although we were assured it was sent out), nor familiar with what could happen to our water rates because of that move. This is the smallest water district in the county.

Several of us discovered that we were put into the Fairgrounds District on Aug. 20-24, when the county sent out a clarification notice, regarding the water rate increases to us, stating that Sunrise Estates was in the Fairgrounds District.

With that information, and the tables of the new water rate charges, we began to meet with each other and various officials, including Director of Public Works Carl Ruschmeyer. In discussing our situation with Carl, and ways to potentially conserve water and lower our bills, or other opportunities that would enable us to lower our out-of-pocket costs, Carl told us that we did not understand the situation. He explained that the county had calculated the water rate increases based on a "revenue neutral" plan.

I asked him to explain that concept, and he told us that our increases were calculated based on our current usage (this past year), and that any lost revenue from either conservation or loss of ownership (foreclosure/dead lawns/trees/shrubs or removal of landscaping) would simply be reallocated the following fiscal year to the remaining residents in the subdivision. This plan is simply insidious. This plan will also make those minimum amounts per month stated above, go ever higher as people conserve water, or walk away from their homes.

Many of us in this subdivision are retired, living on fixed incomes. To impose and collect such incredulous rates will literally bankrupt all of us and send us into foreclosure.

There won't be a single resident living here at the end of five years. Many of us won't make it past one year let alone two or three. The question becomes, what will happen to that debt if the entire subdivision is gone? Who will have to pay for it? As Carl explained, the enterprise funds are done on a "pledge back" basis. What that means is our unpaid water district debt would be inherited by all the other county water district users, and potentially even all the Douglas County taxpayers would be helping pay that unpaid debt (a double hit for all the other water district users). It will actually be less costly to the East Valley residents to have us viable, and sharing in the water rate increases with them, than to have us all be foreclosed upon and lose our homes, thereby activating the revenue neutral policy. Additionally, without all of us in our homes, the county will lose the property tax revenue from all of us. How will the county make up for this lost revenue? The revenue neutral plan means from everyone who is left - water district users and county taxpayers. I won't go into the additional ramifications of the loss of these homes, but it doesn't take a lot of imagination to see that the rest of the county will be impacted in many different ways.

East Valley bills would be impacted as follows: year 2010 - no change; year 2011- no change; year 2012 - 31cents per month more; year 2013 - $1.71 more; 2014 - $7.24 more, if the grants requested do not materialize.

This fourth and fifth year rates could go down, if grants or other funds are received. East Valley residents have received subsidies of more than $2 million, from the county taxpayers.

Sunrise Estates residents have not benefited from subsidies to Fairgrounds. China Springs got a new well for $500,000 and the balance was the pipe to pump our water to the Fairgrounds tank next to the Ruhenstroth Volunteer Fire Department.

We have requested that the commissioners put us back into East Valley Water District (where we were) although we are aware that each East Valley resident's bill could go up the small amount stated above. Several of us overheard an East Valley resident, who argued against countywide consolidation, say that he would pay a little more for his monthly water so that the folks in Sunrise Estates did not lose their homes. Can you imagine the approximate cost of one Starbucks coffee drink or an ice cream cone or a cheap burger in 2014 could be the difference between people losing everything they worked all their lives to obtain? It can, and it will, if we are not put back into the East Valley water district.

Read and Agreed:

Bruce and Carol Brundige

Susan and Jim Krattli

Tom and Karen Christopher

Todd and Tammy DeGiovanni

Dorothy and Joe Morrison

Ken Barker

Sally and Helmut Huttenmayer

John and Susan Simpson

Tom and Lucille Patterson

D.J. and Ron Bratsch

Janet and Robert Walker

Alice Schwebs

Larry and Betty Hofstetter

Jim and Susan Phelps

George and Lou Anne Rohwer

Mike and Sally Wiley

David and Martha Cherney

Liane and Dick Hawkins

Mark and Lea Jacobsen

Terry and Kathy Slaughter

Julius and Carolyn Soldo

Rick and Barb Simon