Menlo Park City Council Members,
I am Janet Jennings. I am a Menlo Park resident and the treasurer of my homeowners association. I have been reviewing the water rate study prepared by Black and Veatch. I understand you are voting on the proposed water rates on May 11.
I have a couple of questions about the drought provisions outlined in the water rate study.
1. In looking at table 3-12 Proposed First Year Drought Charges, FY 22, there is a section called reduction by tier that requires different water reduction percentages for each tier (i.e. for stage 3, tiers one through three have to reduce water consumption by 2%, 5.5%, and 40.3% respectively).
I live in a condominium complex that has 57 units and one water meter. 95% of our water consumption is billed at tier 3 rates, which means we will be subject to tier 3 water rates on the second day of the billing cycle. Our average water usage per unit is 6 CCF.
Question - If the City Council declared stage 3 water reduction, does this mean that each unit of Sharon Glen has to reduce its water consumption 40.3%? That would mean our average per unit water use would have to go from 6 CCF to 3.66 CCF. That is pretty drastic when a single family home that uses the same amount of water would have to reduce water usage by only 2%.
Question - In the event the City Council declares any of the drought reduction stages, should multi-family dwellings calculate per unit water usage to determine what tier we are in and reduce our water consumption by the appropriate percentage?
I invite the City Council to interpret this drought reduction measure as the direct language in the water rate study is not reasonable for residents of multi-family dwellings.
Thank you for your service to our community.
Best regards,
Janet Jennings
