Alva Review-Courier -

The two incumbents won, so they must have had the public's blessing. Good luck to the newbie. Thank you all for wanting to serve.

Most of my rate increase information came from Kelly Parker's story in the paper. I hope he knows what he is doing.

Well, I guess we all know that Charles Durning's character (“Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”) is alive and well in Alva. He did a dance where he went one way with his hat and words, then as he turned around, his hat and words did too. I feel like one person in particular at City Hall did the dance for me.

When we had the new water meters installed, twice I was told by the city manager at two different council meetings that there would be no raises in water and sewer bills. He did say that if your meter had not been working correctly, there could be a difference in your bill, and that seemed fair. When I was told no raises, the city was taking money in hand over fist from the oilfield, and like the state of Oklahoma worked overtime finding ways to not save it. Now we are facing substantial increases in water bills.

Let's get one thing straight. Calling the rate increases the “Future” of Alva is like calling an Angus beef hamburger something special. It is still a hamburger. I don't know about the rest of you, but putting a fancy name on a rate increase just doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling. The sewer usage is figured by the water usage. Does this mean if you only use 1,000 gallons a month instead of the now 5,000-gallon minimum your sewer bill will drop?

On the 1,000-gallon program your bill will increase to over $58 and the 5,000 gallon customer $68.13. If you are going to cut minimum water usage by 4,000 gallons, why not cut the bills for low usage customers who really need and would appreciate the extra money to buy food and medicine with? Put the minimum at $45–$48, just a couple dollars less than it is now. That way the people that can afford to use as much water as they want will be helping support the poor and elderly, and the city will not look unfeeling in their billing.

In fairness to these new rates, the city is scrambling to find new revenues. Fines, rate increases, fees and licenses are an easy way to get money, with virtually nothing the citizens can do to stop it. I read, or dreamed it, that the city is contemplating raising traffic fines. Traffic fines have nothing to do with public safety and everything to do with money. Let's not raise fines, and give some real meaning to driving safety. Community service is a much better way to get people's attention when speeding or running a stop sign. My friend Marc has been ticketed a time or two, and always puts town “tax” on the what-it-is line, and assures the officer he is just a tax collector.

Before I end this there is one thing I absolutely disagree with at City Hall. Ever since water has flowed in Alva, when you had a leak, after you got it fixed, you took your water bill to City Hall and they would average the high bill with the previous bill, to help some on the bill. This policy has changed, and now you just pay the whole water bill and that sucks. What they will do is put your sewer bill back to the minimum, because your leak didn't go down the sewer lines, which helps a bit. With the new rates, I would like to see this changed back to the old way.

I am a dreamer sometimes. I probably will just have to suck it up and pay the new rates. The economy will suffer in Alva with higher rates. Somewhere is a restaurant, local business, or charitable endeavor that will miss out on one day of disposable cash I have to use to pay the higher utility bills.

I did see one thing good that could come from needing to conserve on water. When I mentioned to Cleo we could save lots of water by taking showers together, she said I could work a few hours a week somewhere to pay for my shower water. Bummer!