Milpitas will not disclose the water fixed fee basis

Milpitas will not disclose how the "water fixed rate" fee is calculated and did not disclose the basis for the calculated fees  for any of the utility fees in the notice sent to the parcel owners.

The city of Milpitas will not disclose the basis for the calculated fees for the "water fixed rate fee". This fee went up 15% on one year. When asked in a letter to the city manager Tom Williams, the city response was the following:
Q. What are the charges that when summed up arrive at the water fixed rate fee?
A. "I cannot answer this question because my staff did not perform this calculation you describe."
In another letter to the city asking the same basic question the city response was the following:

 A. "I understand that you believe that the city should have done an independent cost breakdown to develop a new meter charge. The city is not required to do so."

Comment:
In order to increase a utility rate, fee Article XIII D require that you must first calculate the fee and then you must disclose that fee in the notice sent to the public. The city did not calculate the fee and did not disclose how the fee is calculated in the notice sent to the parcel owners.

Article XIII D section 6 part (1) states:
(1) The parcels upon which a fee or charge is proposed for imposition shall be identified. The amount of the fee or charge proposed to be imposed upon each parcel shall be calculated. The agency shall provide written notice by mail of the proposed fee or charge to the record owner of each identified parcel 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 reason for the fee or charge, together with the date, time, and location of a public hearing on the proposed fee or charge. This means that the city must disclose how this fee and all other fees are calculated.

If the city increases a tax on the parcel owners, it must first calculate the new tax and then provide in the notice sent to the parcel owners the basis for the increased tax. In the notice sent to the public in 2011 on utility rates, the city did not disclose how any of the utility rate fees was calculated.  Why are we even paying these city employees a salary?  The higher you pay the city employees the worst service you get.

Milpitas city growing in the right way?

At the last city council meeting Nov 15, the city approved over 200 more housing units to be built. The Mayor says that were growing in the right way. Is that really true?

How is loosing your right to vote on taxes (utilities)  “growing the right way”. I think that called communism where you loose your right to vote. The more residents that own property the harder it is to defeat a utility tax increase. Now we have about 19,000 parcel owners. To defeat a tax increase you need over half of the parcel residents to submit a protest letter and not one person has to vote for a tax increase. Milpitas has the highest sewer rates then any other city in Santa Clara county. Our solders are fighting over seas for the right to vote. Maybe they should come to our city and fight for democracy here instead of fighting over seas. It would cost the taxpayers of the USA a lot less money.

How is increasing the sewage taxes every year on your property progress? Why is it going up every year, it is because of the high demand on sewage infrastructure going up every year. The new sewage plant is costing $2 billion.

How is increasing the demand for water growing the right way? I thought we had a water shortage and we should conserve water usage through low flow toilets and shower heads etc. Oh wait, I guess that does not matter as long as the city can increase the number residents consuming water resources and the council members can get their kickback money from land developers. Let’s just add more residents so that in the future we will be recycling our own toilet water and paying double your current sewage rates. I guess that what the mayor and council members think is progress.
And of course let’s add more parks. If there is anything the city needs it  more parks. The city only has 34 parks, and I guess that is just not enough. Why you may ask, because the  more parks we have the more water the city can use, but please conserve water so the city can give it to the new residents and create more parks. How that for growing the right way?

Polanski is thrilled about if her utility rates rise $6.00 a day

I am so happy that Althea Polanski is thrilled about if her utility bill would cost her $6 a day or $2190 a year. Would the people that voted for her be thrilled about paying $2,190 a year for utility rates? She supposed to be interested in the citizens that put her in office, not what she likes.

 There were over 520 people that disagree with her and the other four council members.  That is a ratio of 100 to 1 against the tax increase, that we know of.  If the city sent out a ballot to alert the public to send in the ballot to appose the tax increase, then there would have been 8500 people against it. Polanski and the other council members refused to include a ballot with the city notice on increasing utility rates. They do not want the public input on tax matters.

I asked the council to include a ballot but they refused. I even asked about sending a ballot at the senior commission, the community advisory commission and the telecommunications commissions about putting in a ballot.  Every time I got a no answer or ignored. Who are these council members working for?

The game was fixed from the start. If a single family parcel cost is higher companies or multifamily rates then the city is in violation of proposition 218 in section (6) b 3. I showed the city that the multifamily had the same number of people as single-family rates. The data I got was from the city own records on housing development and planning.

They take the part of prop 218 they like, the part that marginalizes the people right to vote and forget about the rest. That is illegal. Proposition 218 section 6 comes with the complete language take it or leave it. The charts in the tax increase notice sent out to the parcel owners shows that Milpitas sewer charges are the highest in Santa Clara County. The council members do not want to be confused with the facts. They only care about passing the utility tax. Our city council is for tax and spending. In the next city election in 2012 let’s get ride of two of them.

Last week to protest.

Last week to write in a protest letter to keep your sewer rates from increasing. If you are a Milpitas resident and you not happy that the sewer rates are going from $426 to $558 in three years, then you better get in your written protest letter before May 3 at 5 pm.  Milpitas has the highest sewer rates then any other city in Santa Clara county. This is a very regressive tax on the residents of Milpitas. I have head that some people can barely afford the utility rates as they are today.

See the March blog called Vote form to get a form letter and send it in before May 3 or mail it in before May 1. Time is running out.

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Kathleen Phalen, city engineer on sewer rates.

Kathleen Phalen is the person to contact for any question concerning water and sewer rates.
Phone her at 408 586-3345 or email her at kphalen@ci.milpitas.ca.gov to get the new sewer rate info go to ci.milpitas.ca.gov go to happening now. Meeting about sewer rates on April 21 6:30 at the senior center at 40 North Milpitas Blvd.

Here are a few questions to ask.

1. Why are Milpitas sewer rates the highest in Santa Clara county.
2. Why are multifamily family sewer rates lower.
3. What is considered a Multifamily resident? Are condominiums single or multifamily residents ?
4. Why does it take 8500 protests votes to stop a rate increase when not one person is in favor of the rate increase.
5. Why are single family rates are going to increase from $426 to $558 a year and multifamily rates increase only from $304 to $313 a year.  

Pay to play

Have you ever wondered why a resident of Milpitas has only 3 minutes give a talk before the city council meetings and companies have all the time they want? The reason is they pay for the privilege by contributing to the council members in campaign contributions. Most residents don't pay for campaign contributions they just pay the council members their salaries. Do you think the council members care about the people who are paying their salaries? Of course not. When there is a hot topic and more then 30 citizens what to speak, well then their time to speak is cut down to maybe one and a half minutes. So Milpitas residents are really second class citizens. The city council member get paid about $180.00 an hour for about 100 hours of work a year. If they had to work another hour then there pay would be only $178.22 an hour and of course they would get home an hour later maybe. The council members will tell you that they are doing you a favor by reducing the time you speak on an issue. The way they present it is by saying something like this  

"In order to hear everyone who wants to talk city council  members will reduce your time to speak"

They will quickly vote on the motion to reduce your time to speak and it is quickly approved by the majority of council member. Armando Gomez will introduce the motion and Debbie Giordano will second the motion( in less then a second) then other members Althea Polanski and Pete McHugh will approve it. If they had their way they would not want to hear what you have to say at all, just pay their salary and benefits and please be quiet and go away after 3 minutes or less.

Vote Form

Name      ___________________________ 

Postal Address   _____________________
                             Milpitas Ca. 95035

I protest the new sewer and water rate increases.

Signature ________________________   Date ________________



      City Clerk
      455  E. Calaveras Blvd
      Milpitas, Ca. 95035

'Use the link on the right "Vote Form" to print out a sample letter. Then you can modify it/customize it.


Print out the above form and mail to above address or Fax in to City Clerk at (408) 586-3030

Save yourself $132.00 a year by sending in this form before May 1, 2011 or it will be to late and you will be stuck with the new rates for 4 years. If you would like to print this form, then print only page 1. Set  your webbrower to use print review ( under File tab)  and remove headers and trailers and then print. Another way is to just copy the form part to your editor like notpad or word and fill in your name and address and sign and date it and then print your edited version out.