UCAN Claims City Overcharging for Water

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published January 29, 2007 at 12:05 PM PST

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

Consumer advocates say the city of San Diego has sent out a misleading letter to residents about proposed water rate hikes. The Utility Consumers Action Network is threatening to sue if the city does

Consumer advocates say the city of San Diego has sent out a misleading letter to residents about proposed water rate hikes. The Utility Consumers Action Network is threatening to sue if the city does not revise its estimates of what residents will have to pay. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Every resident in the city got a letter explaining the city needs to raise rates by 6.5 % a year for the next 3 years. But Michael Shames of UCAN says rate hikes for the average consumer are likely to be twice that.

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Michael Shames : This notice and the city’s intent behind the notice is totally deceptive.

Mayoral spokesman Fred Sainz says those who read their letters careful will be able to calculate how much their rates will rise.

Fred Sainz: Revenue into the system will be 6.5 percent, but your rates will depend on how much water you end up using

The city says the new rates encourage water conservation. But Shames says it does the opposite, by asking smaller users to pay a higher rate of increase than big users.

If more than 50 percent of residents register a protest the proposal fails. Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.