Sewer Bill Sympathy

EDIT:  Bob Spiers has done a masterful job of comparing sewer rates between Vernon and Coldstream.
The link is here.   Wow! Look at the comparison!

R.J. Johnston's letter to the editor hit the newspaper June 24th, 2016.
As you read the letter, it helps to adopt a similar tongue-in-cheek stance as the author obviously employed when writing it...


"Can you feel sadness for Mark Sandberg as he wonders why his water bill is so high?

I guess he wasn't around when the regional district first decided to grab even more money from we, the sheep, that populate and pay for their whims and extravagant schemes all in the name of improvements.

Originally, we were told that we would never pay for one drop more than we used if we spent gobs of money on water meters.  Too many saved water so that plan was amended to add a basic charge.  So much for that.

"...property taxes are less than

 what I pay for the water bill!"

R.J.Johnston

We were charged a basic amount for sewer use by the City of Vernon.  It didn't take them long to discover that even more money can be squeezed from the population by charging for how much water you use in the winter months as your actual use would be just for household use, i.e. whatever came from the tap went down the sewer (of course we all buy bottled water).

Another dim light came on when the realization came to light that if you were a snowbird you wouldn't have a sewer bill at all.  Not fair, except the solution wasn't made for two or three years.

These water meters were to last 50 years.  Somewhere there may be a few meters that go slow, so let's replace them with another round of waste and change them.

When you actually can find the person in charge, you will be told the funds for this will come from infrastructure we have been paying all along.  Instead of that, why not just not charge that extra amount in the first place?  Wait:  it is so that he/she can justify their existence?

When I got my property tax notice, I found that the taxes are less than what I pay for the water bill!

In their minds, that is an anomaly and somehow will be fixed.  Do you think the water bill will be reduced?  Doubt it?  Last words of wisdom for Mark:  Be careful for what you wish for."
                      R.J. Johnston

It appears the Morning Star likes to "save" letters, so that same topic letters generally appear in the same issue...interesting then that the following letter to the editor hasn't been published:

"Wait until Mark Sandberg (first quarter sewer billing, June 1/16 letter to editor) learns this!

Add this to your complaint about your quarterly sewer invoices being based on the first quarter’s usage:

Did you know that your first quarter water meter reading isn’t actually for the months of January, February and March?

Meters are actually read sometime in early December, again in early February.  That’s the first quarter period on which your sewer charges are based for the entire year.

By reading your meter around the first week of December, the “consumption” includes all your family’s Christmas visitors!

And of course, all visitors over the festive season flush your toilets.

The Greater Vernon Water utility regularly and routinely overcharges for services they are not providing...quarterly base water rates are proof.

The North Okanagan’s elected officials allow this customer gouging to continue year after year."

"...probably more important to print a similar-length letter about a near-miss traffic event," chuckles Kia.

Yeah, that's it.

The second letter was submitted 22 days ago...