The LADWP, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, announced on Tuesday that starting in the 2016 calendar year, LA residents will be charged a bonus 3.6% percent to their monthly bill for water and electricity. Reasoning behind this was the fact that LA brought in $110 million dollars less than they had believed they would in the last year, putting them at severe risk of not being able to pay for the funds going towards services in the LA county. The LADWP has made it clear to LA residents that this increase in money they have to carve out will only last until 2016 is over, yet they are making a push for a 5 year steady increase in percent of pay that will total to an increase in around 34 percent. Due to the evident drought California is undergoing, the reduced usage of water decreases revenue in their funds, in turn increasing costs of their infrastructure. Sandy Brown, the president of a property owning association, says that LADWP will always be in the hole if they are constantly trying to repair a decaying infrastructure. Brown clearly supports the increasing rates of a water bill based off of the belief that if you do not prioritize infrastructure in a city like LA, the rates will have to increase even further, which would then become a major problem. However, the chair of a community council Steven Sann believes that not only should the rates be lowered for LA residents, but that they should be rewarded in order to have an incentive to keep saving water. I agree in Sann's logic that there needs to be an incentive in saving, because it isn't rational for people to just be okay with saving water especially after their rates heavily increase. Although, I also believe Sann's logic is greatly flawed in which for one, LA IS NOT ACTUALLY SAVING WATER, they are directly sucking it all up from northern California and using it in the south, because that's CLEARLY WHERE THE AGRICULTURE OF CALIFORNIA LIES ( heavy sarcasm ). I think its dumb how LA is attempting to complain about water of all things when they are not the one's who need it most. all in all, LA needs to be put in check for their "I'm more important than the north" behavior.
http://dailybruin.com/2015/10/26/saving-water-becomes-costly-for-la-residents/
http://dailybruin.com/2015/10/26/saving-water-becomes-costly-for-la-residents/