A Vote in Fountain Valley to Protest an Unfeeling Bureaucracy

My no vote on the Fountain Valley City Council water rate increase was a protest to the MWD and all other agencies thinking of increasing their fees (“Council Votes 9.5% Water Rate Increase,” Jan. 9). I am angry and frustrated because the bureaucracy is so difficult to penetrate or change or even dent.

I can’t believe that agencies such as these can be so arrogant as to continue to increase their charges for water by any amount they wish and have no qualms about doing so. They seem to be immune to the feelings of the people, especially during these tough economic times. Are these individuals so isolated and consequently so insulated from the public that they can’t hear what people are trying to tell them?

Many people (including myself) are on fixed incomes. The “buck,” and I mean that literally, stops at that income level, whatever that may be. Any price increase, no matter how slight, has a different effect on different family units. It may be insignificant for some income levels, but devastating for the person who has lost his job or for the single-parent family trying to make ends meet or the retired couple living on the edge--and remember, water is just one item among the hundreds of increases covering every aspect of a family’s economic existence. When prices go up, families have to cut back--and so should governmental and municipal agencies. Stop passing everything on down to the taxpayers; they have already tightened their collective belts.

The MWD says it has made cuts. I want to know what the MWD has done to keep its costs in line.

Every time an increase in water rates is presented, there is always a thinly veiled threat that if it doesn’t go through, there is a possibility that treatment plants may be affected or some other drastic consequence will happen, giving the public a slight impression or fear that polliwogs may show up in the drinking water. They always say they have or will cut this or that but never the fat.

GUY CARROZZO, Fountain Valley