Dear Menlo Park City Council Members -
As you know, in MP our water usage is billed in CCF units (1 CCF = 748.1 gallons). However, billing in CCFs (rather than gallons) results in homeowners being consistently invoiced for water they haven’t used. For example, if a residence uses 800 gallons in a given month, the homeowner is billed for 2 CCF’s. This means that the home owner is actually being billed for 696.2 gallons of water that they did not use! Unless the actual number of gallons used in a month is an exact multiple of 748.1 , the homeowner will always be billed for some amount of water that they did not use.
In addition, it’s reasonable to assume that the cost of water will continue to increase in the future. This means that over-billing will become even more expensive and unfair to MP residents.
To compound the problem, MP homeowners currently have no way of knowing our true water usage. Our monthly invoices from the Municipal Water District show a number for ‘Usage in Gallons” - however, this is a calculated number, not actual usage. If you look back at multiple invoices, you will see that ‘Gallon Usage’ is always exactly the number of CCFs billed times 748.1. ‘Gallon Usage’ as reported on our invoices is inaccurate and misleading.
I’m sure we can all agree that it is not acceptable for the Water District to invoice MP homeowners for water they don’t use. (This also raises the question: How is the Water District using the revenues it’s received for all the gallons of water MP residents haven’t actually used?)
Given all the above, what action will the City Council take to address the way residential water usage is measured, communicated and invoiced?
Thank you,
Maureen Holding
600 Willow Road
Unit 17
Menlo Park, CA 94025
M: 206-713-3377
