Big Pipes Bringing Big Bills For Janesville

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In a short article that reports on a request to hike water rates in Janesville a whopping 15% AND make an additional request to hike them even further in the near future by building yet another water tower at the price of $7.5 million (guesstimate another 15% hike on top), the Janesville Gazette, just two days before the council hearing, de-emphasized this major impact on Janesville residents under the title Ordinance would regulate Spencer gifts, Page 4.

JG Excerpt:
Currently, the average residential customer’s quarterly water bill is $40, which is a $35.10 charge for water and $4.90 for public fire protection. That would increase to $40.28 and $5.62 for a total of $45.90.

They must be counting all the vacant homes with their water turned off as customers. In that case, expect the average water bill to go down even further.

My three person and a dog household has a water saving washer, water saving toilets and shower heads. We never, I mean never let the water ‘run’ at the faucet. We don’t water the lawn and for years we’ve had a rain barrel for watering plants in the garden. Believe it or not, we conscientiously make an effort to save water every day and consider ourselves very frugal when it comes to water use, yet our ‘average’ quarterly bill is $75 - $80. Mind you, I’m not complaining about it, but it does take an effort and sacrifice on our part to keep it low. Yet, the city has the average water bill (household) pegged at $40 a quarter, which means half of the households are paying even less. But I’m not posting here to talk about the price of our water as much as the future cost from the impact of Janesville’s so-called ‘big pipes.’

Water rates went up in 2008 by 5.5% to socialize the costs of the water tower for the Hendricks residential development. Now, rates will go up again because the utility will pump less water (to GM) and again to socialize the costs on a second water tower to serve growth projections. And yet again to pay for upgrades at the waste water treatment facility. And yet again to satisfy city budget formula's requiring the utilities to earn a 6% rate of return. Remember, this is just one small facet of the expected multitude of cost-of living impacts at a time of an expected and prolonged recession – not growth, coming down the pipes for Janesville taxpayers and rate payers.

And the truth is, excluding the waste water facility upgrades, all the other projects are of little to no use to current residents. The other requests for water rate hikes are based simultaneously on flawed 'old world' growth projections and believe it or not, over-capacity, during a time of projected population destabilization and receding local capital flows.

It was only recently during a city council hearing when growth consultants bragged how well positioned Janesville was with big pipes going out to nowhere.

JG Excerpt:
Action to proceed with plans to build a 1.5-million-gallon water tower on the city’s northeast side and a large diameter water main to connect the existing 24-inch mains on the city’s east and west sides.

The city can defend the ‘big pipes’ boast with the ‘24-inch mains’ but the request for a water tower blows a hole in their growth management, meaning, their claim for a water tower to serve current customers (not growth) and to connect east and west sides giving the project a city-wide use and obligation seems like a sales pitch fabrication to cover up established growth mismanagement.

Question: Where are growth impact fees and why aren’t special assessments utilized?

But forget about all of that. Instead, the newspaper wants you to focus on the social impact of potentially harmful visuals and materials on display at your nearest novelty store.

Residents in Janesville are constantly being fed a load of crock from either the city’s only newspaper or city government. I blame the newspaper mostly because they should know better and number two, it's their job to accurately portray reports, governmental activity and the consequences of action as fairly as possible without the focus shift or semantics. Specifically, this article should have been two articles with slightly more detail and perspective given to the water rate hikes, given our economic circumstances. But who am I to say? I'm just an idiot.

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Beloit Property Values Decline

Some areas decline as much as 15% percent in just one year!

BDN Excerpt:
The overall tax base this year is down 1.8 percent, with some neighborhoods seeing a property value decrease of 1.5 percent and others as much as 15 percent, said City Assessor Dan McHugh.