Sewer Rate Hike
A Note From Mike Cooney About the 11/13/08 Hearing:
Gold Canyon residents win lower sewer rate
by Mike Cooney - Nov. 14, 2008 10:28 AM
Special for The Republic
The Arizona Corporation Commission voted, 4-1, on Thursday reduced the rate the Gold Canyon Sewer Company can charge its residential customers from $60.67 to $52 a month.
In overturning a rate increase it granted in June 2006, the commission acted against the advice of Administrative Law Judge Dwight Nodes and its own staff, who recommended that the $60.67 rate be upheld.
Nodes presided at a rehearing of the case, which the commission agreed to after a request by the Residential Utilities Office, a group paid for by the state that watches out for consumers interests in utility cases.
Daniel Pozefsky, the principal attorney for RUCO said the original decision was not fair to rate payers and heavily favored the company's interests.
He pointed out that the $52 rate is still a 48 percent increase from the $35 Gold Canyon residents were paying before the company asked for the increase in January 2005.
Commissioner Kris Mayes, who offered two amendments to the original decision that resulted in the rate rollback, said after the vote, "I don't know if we got it right, but we got it better." Mayes and Bill Mundell were the only commissioners who opposed the increase in June 2006.
Commissioner Gary Pierce, who voted for the 72 percent rate hike in 2006, said he had been troubled by that decision and was glad the commission got a chance to correct it.
But Chairman Mike Gleason, the only commissioner to vote no on the rate reduction, called the vote "the greatest miscarriage of justice in my four years on the board."
The decision to reduce the rate came after commissioners approved an amendment that changed the way the rate was calculated since Gold Canyon Sewer paid for its entire expansion with equity rather than using debt, saying that method put an unfair burden on the present rate payers.
It also decided that when the plant was expanded from a capacity of 1 million gallons a day to 1.9 million, that 400,000 gallons of that capacity was excessive and should not be used to calculate rates.
Al Clark, vice president of the board of directors of MountainBrook Village, an active adult community that was an intervener in the case, called the decision a victory for the people of Gold Canyon.
"Even though it doesn't amount to a lot of money, I'm tickled pink that all the efforts that Gold Canyon residents went to in opposing the increase were recognized and rewarded.
The new rate will take effect on December sewer bills
