Anyone paying Truth or Consequences’ water and sewer bills may want to attend the 5:30 p.m. public session, Wednesday, March 25 to at least question why up to 25 percent rate increases are being considered.
Please see the rate study and October PowerPoint and October meeting minutes to prepare for the session: https://cms5.revize.com/revize/truthconsequencesnew/Packet.pdf?t=202603201728140&t=202603201728140
I have looked at the study and written about it: https://sierracountycitizen.org/water-wastewater-study-is-scary-and-confusing/
I have since interviewed City Manager Gary Whitehead about the complete study that became available mid-January. He answered some of my questions.
Why has this study been going on for three years, I asked. Whitehead gave me documents showing that NewGen’s scope of work changed with each new city manager taking charge, and there have been three: Bruce Swingle, Angela Gonzales and Gary Whitehead.
Whitehead, brand new and facing the water and sewer crisis, had quickly ingested water and wastewater studies, the nearly $70 million in water and wastewater projects that are already funded over the next five years. He determined that by 2029 or so (the study’s timeline screwed up by three years of starts and stops) the sewer will need at least $5 million in upgrades, which meant taking out a loan and making a yearly debt payment from sewer funds.
The prior two scopes of work Swingle and Gonzales had defined would essentially have done all the homework Whitehead had already done. Whitehead’s scope of work limited the study to estimating operations and maintenance cost increases and a cash match and yearly debt payment on a $5 million loan.
And that is my problem with the study. All the analysis and evidence and information that relates rates to capital projects and operations is mostly in Whitehead’s head or city staffers’ heads, or hired engineers’ heads or spread over hard-to-understand past and looming engineering studies.
Citizens are being asked over and over again to pay higher rates ad infinitum with no evidence of a game plan, let alone a document that correlates rates and rate increases with asset management plans and capital projects needed.
The city increased electric rates January 2024 and two years later, at the last city commission meeting, presented an engineering study explaining what capital projects are needed, but not matching them to rate revenue. This is backwards. Present the asset management and capital projects projections and relate them to rates and then institute a rate increase.
Now we are doing it again with water and sewer rates.
Our city commissions, past and present, have neglected our infrastructure by essentially living pay check to pay check. It’s been seven years now of water and wastewater crises and still they have not figured out they need a master plan that lays out projects in priority and their costs.
For the last seven years I have requested such a master plan as well as department asset management plans at city meetings, in articles and in person with city managers.
At the Oct. 8 city meeting city commissioners seemed stunned by NewGen’s proposed rate increases but simply looked at the bottom line.
“It’s going to be a hard sell,” then-City Commissioner Merry Jo Fahl said. “Show them the numbers in black and white,” she recommended, failing to recognize that the study failed to explain WHY yearly rate increases need to be greatly increased.
City Commissioner Destiny Mitchell said, “I think, with the community reaching out to us about our broken water leaks and infrastructure and disrepair, you know, this is something that is determined to fix it. And they need to be aware that if we’re going to fix all of this we’re going to have to have the money to do it, and some of it is on them.”
This is the typical posture of past and present city commissioners. She is clueless, even though she’s in her fifth year, that it is and was the city commission’s poor management of public funds due to lack of planning that have created a seven-years-long-and-counting water and wastewater crisis.
The study doesn’t “determine” the fixes, it just presents the bill in the form of rate increases. And there is no “if” about whether the fixes will be done. The city has EPA and NMED breathing down its neck, with exorbitant fines imposed if fixes are not done. And all of the expense, not “some,” will be borne by the public purse.
I see no end to the city commission’s cluelessness. That’s why citizens need to attend the 5:30 session and demand asset management plans and capital projects plans be presented and correlated to current and future rate increases before accepting another massive rate increase.
“We need more money for the money pit” just doesn’t cut it.