Are you going to vote for new council members in Milpitas?

That is a personal choice, but here are some things you should know about the two council members that are up for reelection. The Mayor Esteves and council member Debby Giordano are up for reelection.

The Mayor Jose Esteves and council member Debby Giordano have voted to increased  you utility taxes by the following numbers.

1. Sewer charges increased by 7% Milpitas sewer rates are the highest in Santa Clara county.
2. Water flat rate increased (water meter fee) by 17%. Who knows how they calculate this fee? This is the second highest fee in Santa Clara county. Mayor Esteves or City manager Tom Williams will not disclose how this fee is calculated. Not disclosing how a fee is calculated is a violation of state law article XIII - D section 6 (1)  which states  "agency shall provide written notice by mail of the proposed fee, the basis upon which the amount of the proposed fee or charge was calculated." There was basis of how any of the increased fees were calculated.
3. The water rates are the second highest in Santa Clara county. For 0 - 10 hundred cubic feet of water (HCF) the fee increased by 14% from $1.77 to $2.02. For 11 -20 HCF the fee has increased by 68.0% from $1.77 to $2.76. For 21 - 30 HCF the fee increased by 8% from $3.72 to $4.02. A hundred cubic feet of water equals 748 gallons of water.
4. Milpitas water meter fee is the second highest in Santa Clara county. Milpitas residence pay $13.15 most other cities pay from $9.00 to $12.00. Only San Jose water Co. charges more at $16.93 for some homes in Cupertino, Los Gatos and Saratoga.

Your city council members are part time employees of the city and they spend about 3 to 4 hours on the city council twice a month which is 20 meeting a year ( there off one month ) and they sit on one or two other advisory commissions. That's about 170 hours a year at most and they get a health benefits and a retirement package. Why are the residents of Milpitas paying for health and retirement benefits for part time employees is beyond my understanding, except that they are greedy people and they can vote for their own benefits. Most have full time jobs that pay for their benefits.

What can we say about council member Debby Giordano?

At the Oct 2, 2012 city council meeting there was video showing Debby Giordano taking a mailbox off the post of her x husband residents. I believe that a federal offence. This is hard to believe, see for yourself. This is the city own website.

http://vp.telvue.com/player?height=300&id=T02061&noplaylistskin=1&video=131586&width=400

You need to get to about 32 minutes into the city council meeting before you see the video of Debby taking the mail box. There is a horizontal bar at the bottom of the video that you can set the time to view. Click on the mouse at about 3 inches to the left. This video will show you the character of some of your own city council members.

Debby received $10,000 in money for her education expense. That money should be for full time employees not for part time employees, I have no idea what the tax payers of Milpitas gets out of her  education expenses but I guess she thinks that she worth it. Tom Williams the city manager thought that it was a good idea too and I guess that why Debby voted to give him a 6% increase in salary. Tom Williams is now is making $212,000 a year. She also voted to give away $1.5 million dollars to a private company called SunPower that makes solar panels. The agreement was that they hire 80 Milpitas residents. These jobs were assembly jobs at the lowest pay grade. Who knows if they met this agreement or if the city can get this money back. The Mayor and all other council members voted for this give away of our tax money to a private company. The senior advisory commission asked the city council for opening the senior center on the weekends. Debby would not even bring this up for a vote. The tax payers paid $11 million dollars for the place and seniors who have to work during the week can not even use the place. Who knows how much the construction company gave to the city council members for construction on the new senior center.

You can vote for who you want to, but you should know that these council members are council members for their own benefits while there taxing you to death and breaking state and federal laws. Please vote for new city council members, the city of Milpitas needs better council members that are not in it for their own benefits and want to serve the public and not themselves.

 Look at votenow other posts to see if you are being ripped off on your sewage charges.

 

 

How to read your utility bill to determine if you're overcharged

How to read your utility bill to determine how much water per year you're using and possibly overcharged for sewage fees

A sample of  the bar graph that is shown at the bottom of your utility is shown here.

Hundred cubic feet (HCF) = 748 gallons of water

Get your utility bill and look the bottom, there is a bar graph similar to the one above. The bar graph shows the number of hundred cubic feet ( HCF)  units of water coming into you're house per month and year. This is important because you are charged a flat rate fee for how much sewage water you're using. The city charges for a single family parcel as if there are 3.37 persons per household (PPH) living on the parcel and using 65 gallons a day every day of the year. This equates to the following number of gallons per year.

(3.37 PPH) X  (65 gallons per day)  X (365 days a year) = 79,953.25 gallons.

It is necessary to convert number of gallons of water to HCF units, because the bar graph is uses HCF units. To convert to HCF units divide the number of gallons by 748.

 Thus 79,953.25 gallons / 748 gallons per HCF =  106.89 HCF units per year.

 The current sewage charge for all single family unit is $455.52 per year. To calculate what your fee per HCF should be is to take your yearly fee of $455.52  and divide by 106.89 HCF.

$455.52/106.89 HCF = $4.46 per HCF. The highest business charge is $5.38 and the average is about $3.33.

Are you overcharged for you service? This would occur if you use less then 79,953 gallons a year or 106.89 HCF per year.

The bar graph sample above shows in a year that this parcel is only using 6 HCF units per year. Each bar is 1 HCF and there are 6 bars in the year. The cost this parcel should be paying is $4.46/HCF x 6 HCF units is  $26.76. The result is an over charge of  $455.52 - $26.76 =  $428.76. This graph  is most likely for a single person, but even so you still could be overcharged by a large amount even if there are 2 or more people and the parcel is not using 65 gallons a day, every day of the year. That is the reason why you need to check. In the bar graph shown there, if there is only 6 HCF used in a year and the city is charging the single family resident as if the parcel was using 106.89 HCF units in sewage a year then there is more water leaving the parcel in sewage then the water coming into the parcel. Of course this is impossible, but the city still wants to charge you a flat fee of $455.52 per year. This problem occurs because the city uses a flat rate fee to charge all residential units. The business units are charged what their actually used, but residential units not. The city's general plan chapter 7 page 45 shows a table of number of people per household. The table shows that there are 1,364 parcels that have only one person. These parcels are all over charged. The ratio of single family to multifamily units is 2 out of 3. The number of single family units that only have two people is 2/3 of  3,167 parcel owners or 2,111 parcels . This is 2,111 single family parcels that have only two persons per household. These parcels are also overcharged, because the city is using 3.37 people per household for single family units. Together with one person per household  at 909 parcels, and two people per household at 2,111 then the number of  single family units is 3,020 households that are over charged. Divide your yearly bill by the number of HCF from your bar graph and you will find how much your actually paying compared to business parcels. Using the example above for single family would be $455.52/6 = $75.92. For multifamily it would be $255.75/6 = $42.63.

 Article XIII D section 6 state

(1) Revenues derived from the fee or charge shall not exceed the funds required to provide the property related service.

(2) Revenues derived from the fee or charge shall not be used for any purpose other than that for which the fee or charge was imposed.

(3) The amount of a fee or charge imposed upon any parcel or person as an incident of property ownership shall not exceed the proportional cost of the service attributable to the parcels the following:

The city has violated section 6 b(1) and b(3) because the fees exceed the funds required to provide the property related service and the fee exceeds the proportional cost of the service attributable to the parcel. Notes it says "any parcel", this means that if one parcel is overcharged then there is a violation of the state law. The city has also violated section 6 (1) which states

"The city shall identify parcels upon which the fee or charge is proposed for imposition, the amount of the fee or charge proposed to be imposed upon each, the basis upon which the amount of the proposed fee or charge was calculated..."

The city did not provide the basis upon which the amount of the proposed fee was calculated, which  means that the city did not state how the fees are calculated in the utility notice that sent to the parcel owners in April of 2011.

Multifamily units are charged $306.36 flat rate fee. In the example above if the parcel used 6 HCF units a year then their overcharge would be $306.36 - $26.76 =  $279.60.  Why is the yearly flat rate fee less for multifamily units than single family units, because the city uses only 2.05 PPH and only 60 gallons a day for 365 days a year. This amounts to 44895 gallons a year or 60.02 HCF per year. The multifamily units are overcharged if their using less then 44895 gallons a year and undercharged if their using more then 44,849 gallons a year.

Your fees are most likely different from the example above but there are over 2,500 households in Milpitas that are overcharged because there are only 2 or less people living in those parcels. They are mostly seniors that are effected. What can you do if you're overcharged? Call you city council members and tell them you're overcharged and do not vote for them in November. The council members that are up for renewal are the Mayor Esteves and Debby Giordano. They both voted to increase your sewage charge by 7% for single family and your water fixed rate fee by 15%, and 16% increase in water fees for less then 10 HCF, and  68.36% incease in water fees above 10 HCF. Those water and sewage charges could go even higher in the future.

Milpitas overcharges over 3000 single family parcels

How the city of Milpitas overcharges parcels on sewage.

Shown here is a table from the city general plan chapter 7 Table III.29 page 7-45 that shows how many people live in their parcels in Milpitas.

 http://www.ci.milpitas.ca.gov/_pdfs/plan_plan_general_chapter7.pdf on page 7-45.

household size	% of all households	total	renters	owners
1 person	11.5%	2,066	702	1,364
2 persons	24.0%	4,290	1,123	3,167
3 persons	20.3%	3,634	1,249	2,385
4 persons	20.0%	3,584	1,048	2,538
5 persons	11.4%	2,048	2048	1,362
6 persons	6.3%	1,120	252	868
7 persons	6.5%	1,157	361	796
5 or more persons	24.2%	4,325	1,309	3,016

In order to calculate a fee per parcel the city uses a persons per household number (PPH). the 2010 numbers are the following: For single family units is 3.45, multifamily units 2.75 and mobile homes 1.9 . The city changed these numbers and decided to use the 2010 sewage report numbers. The 2010 sewage numbers are from a Santa Clara planning department for the year 1975. The 1975 numbers are as follows: Single family 3.37, multifamily 2.05 and mobile home PPH numbers are the same as today. The city is assuming every parcel is using 60-65 gallons a day per person for 365 days a year. If you do not use that may gallons of water a day, well then your overcharged in the gallons also. You may ask why did the city change from one set of persons per household numbers to other? The answer is that if they used the 2010 numbers the single family units could not be charged a 7% increase in fees in 2011 and the multifamily charges would go up by 3%, but if they used the 1975 numbers that really decreases the number people per household for multifamily parcels which will result in a decrease in the number gallons the multifamily parcels are using by 25%. So the multifamily units sewage fee should have gone down, but went up by  0.75% and single family units went up by 7%.  The city is playing politics with the fees and overcharging the single family units. If the city just used the current person per household  (PPH) numbers i.e. single family 3.45 multifamily 2.75 and mobile homes 1.9 PPH, then the single family parcels would have payed only $0.78 more per year. This is not a misprint. The multifamily parcels would have payed only  $9.60 more a year.  Using the 1975 Santa Clara city planning numbers i.e. single family 3.37and multifamily 2.05 PPH, then the city could charge $30.00 more for  single family units or 7% more then the $425.64 charge in 2010. Single family units now pay $149.00 more per year then multifamily units. This is a simple trick to overcharge the single family units.

Looking at the table above for all the single, multifamily or mobile homes parcels there are 1,364 parcels that only have one person living in them and are being grossly overcharged. Depending on what type of housing units their in, they are charged 2-3 times what they should be paying. There are 3,167 households that only have 2 people living in them. Of the 3,167 households that have 2 people there are 2,831 single family units that are overcharged because again you charging as if there were 3.37- 3.45 PPH. This means that just in the single family units alone there are over 2,977 households that are overcharged.  That is 36.31% of all the single family units are being overcharged because of 2 or less people living in them. 

How would you solve this problem? The answer is by charging for what you really use.  The city of Milpitas does exactly that for business units but not for residential units.  A fee per HCF would save all those households from being grossly overcharged.  If you look at the number of households that have 4 or more people per household (PPH) then there are 5,564 parcels that are undercharged because you’re only charging as if there were 3.37 PPH to 3.45 PPH using 60 - 65 gallons a day, 365 days a year. That means that 44.58% are being undercharged. This problem would go away if you were charged a fee per HCF. Everyone would pay their fair share.  The city says that the fee per HCF would not be accurate in all cases but how accurate is overcharging over 36% of single family residents and undercharging 44.58% of all residents. The city is not even in the ball park for accuracy using the flat rate fees as the statistics show.

The city of Milpitas knows that they are overcharging thousands of households because the city sends you a bimonthly bill on how much water your using.  As an example to find out how much a single family is using in sewage, the city uses the following formula:
persons per household (PPH)* 65 gallons per day * 365 days a year. For single family units the number of gallons per year would be
3.45 PPH * 65 gallons per day * 365 days per year = 81851.25 gallons per year. We need to convert 81851.25 gallons to hundred cubic feet of water (HCF). One HCF = 748 gallons.  Divide the number of gallons 81851.25 by 748 to get to HCF units per year.
81851.25/748 = 109.42 HCF per year. The question is, are you using 81851.25 gallons of water a year or 109.42 HCF per year?  The city knows how many gallons of water you're using because the city send you bimonthly utility bill which as how much water  water your using and if the number of gallons is less then 81851.25 (109.42 HCF) you're overcharged.

Every other month you get your utility bill. The number of gallons of water per year our using is on that bill. You can determine the number of HCF units your using by the bar graph that on the bottom of the bill. The bar graph shows the number of HCF units by the month. Add up all the bars for one year and you know how much water in HCF units your using. If the number is less then 109.42 HCF then you're overcharged for your service and if were charged what you actually use then the fee will be less if there are less then 3.45 PPH. What this means is the city is charging you for 81851.25 gallon going out of your residence then the water is coming into you residents. This problem is occurring for many thousands of residents, it does not matter what type of parcel there in.  The single family units are paying $455.52 and multifamily units are paying $306.36 per year.  Single family is paying $149.16 for the same service then multifamily parcels. If there are only two people living in both types of units why should a single family unit pay $149.16 more?

The residents of Milpitas fix can this problem is by getting rid of the city council members that are up for reelection. Debby Giordano and Mayor Jose Esteves are up for reelection. I have asked for a meeting with Mayor Jose Esteves on sewer charges and he refused. Two years from now get rid of the other council members. All council members voted to increase you sewage charge by 7% and your water fixed rate fee by 15%. The city manger Tom Williams will not even disclose how this water fixed rate fee is calculated. This attitude by the city manager is the result of your elected council members that do not care what you're charged for your utility fees. They only care about keeping themselves in office. If you're are overcharged send a email to the council members and tell them your not going to vote for them. The email addresses are jesteves@ci.milpitas.ca.gov and dgiordano@ci.milpitas.ca.gov