Families May Pay Higher Water and Sewer Rates Than Businesses

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published February 23, 2007 at 1:37 PM PST

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

A new analysis of water and sewer rate increases proposed by the city of San Diego shows residential users will pay more than commercial users. . KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

A new analysis of water and sewer rate increases proposed by the city of San Diego shows residential users will pay more than commercial users. . KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

The San Diego city council is scheduled to vote on higher water and sewer rates on Monday. The Center on Policy Initiatives, that researches issues affecting working families, has analyzed the new water rate structure. Murtaza Baxamusa of CPI says the water bill for multi family residence will go up more than 18 percent next year, while businesses’ bills only increases 2 percent. He says poor families will bear the brunt of the increases.

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Baxamusa: What’s going to happen is that people aren’t going to BE able to pay their bills, the waters going to be cut off and poor are going to be most hard hit.

In the following years, 2009 and 10, commercial water bills will rise at the same rate as residential bills. But Baxamusa says in general, families will pay 30 percent more per gallon of water than the average business. 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.