Oooops!

It happens to the best of us...
and then the rest of us.

You're all fired up about a topic and plan to write a Letter to the Editor.

Convinced you know something that'll help residents learn doesn't mean you get it right.
Despite "knowing your stuff".

As I found out when my LtE finally made it into the Morning Star (after sending it on June 3rd, 2016).

I goofed.

The letter, printed today in the Morning Star, follows...with the OOOOPS repaired in BOLD:

"Water Rates (incorrect choice of heading by MS...it should've been Sewer Rates.

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.(oops...sic...early MARCH)  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."                    Barb Mitchell

Here's how I know:

Look at the following dates when meters are read (despite invoices not arriving for approx. another month which gives an incorrect impression of when meters were actually read).

Fourth quarter meters are read early December, and then again in early March.  So the first quarter meter readings for sewer billing purposes actually include most of December, all of January, all of February, and perhaps one week in March.  That includes all your Christmas visitors!  And makes up the 1st Quarter billing for sewer billing purposes (for the entire year...when you likely don't have as many visitors?).

So here are my Coldstream property's water meter reading dates (I'm nearly always here to greet the meter reader fellow and record the date the meters were read) to prove it:

4th Q 2013: Meters read Dec. 3, 2013: 
Invoices received January 9, 2014

1st Q 2014: Meters read March 6, 2014: 
Invoices received week of April 8, 2014
Note that the 1st Q for sewer billing purposes covers the period December 4th, 2013 through March 5, 2014.


4th Q 2014:  Meters read (? Dec. 2014):
Invoices received week of early January, 2015
1st Q 2015:  Meters read (? date early March 2015):
Invoices received (early April 2015)
Note that the 1st Q for sewer billing purposes covers the period early December 2014 through early March, 2015. 
 
4th Q 2015:  Meters read Dec. 9,2015:
Invoices received January 12, 2016
1st Q 2016:  Meters read (? date early March 2016):
Invoices received first week April, 2016
Note that the 1st Q for sewer billing purposes covers the period December 10, 2015 through early March, 2016.

So those are the meter reading dates.
And likely yours, too...(give or take a few days).

Despite my inability to get it correct in the LtE *grin*

"It's clear our elected officials approved the gouging of customers re the 1st Quarter Sewer Rates," says Kia, "they know what it causes."

 It's piracy of the highest order.