Several associates and I believe that the City of Modesto is charging, or rather, over charging rates on the water utility that are so large as to be immoral, and perhaps criminal.  We firmly believe that the City is violating each of the four tenants of Proposition 218.  We believe that we have shown the Mayor and Council ample evidence of this over charge.  City staff has never challenged our numbers.  Staff has not explained why there is such a large overcharge.  Staff has not answered the Council’s questions, nor ours. 

            Staff has agreed to hold a “workshop” to discuss our criticism of the rates.  We believe this workshop will simply be an exercise in excuses and rationalization.

            Therefore, we propose that the Mayor and/or any Councilperson accept an invitation to debate the issue.  We believe that if they are sure that they are correct in overcharging the water users of Modesto by $23 Million dollars last year, they would be anxious to defeat us in an open and fairly moderated debate.   We believe the BEE, radio station KFIV and TV station KAZV would be fair and open venues to hold such a debate.  If you invite us, we will come.  If any elected official is willing to justify the current water rate escalation, we would debate that issue.  (Frankly, if they want to debate the purposeful neglect of our City’s streets, we would debate that issue as well.)

            There comes a time when elected officials must be held accountable.  Many Modestans feel that our City is very poorly run.  This is a time for our elected council people to begin to establish trust and be accountable in an open and fair forum.  Failure to take advantage of any invitation to do so, would be a tacit admission that we are correct in our criticism.

            We look forward to your invitations.    Dave Thomas and Eric Reimer

            P S    Mayor Ridenour wrote an OpEd piece in the Feb 1, ’06 BEE,  titled “Mayor’s seven step plan to restore trust”.  An open discussion about water rates would be a great place to start. 

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