Jeff Morey: If city didn’t waste our dollars, it might not need to raise wate rates

Re “Modesto City Council opts to raise water rates” (Front page, Aug. 11): It’s bad enough that the city orders its water customers that they can only water on Tuesday and Saturday when there is, at the current time, no restriction on watering in Sacramento. That’s fine. I know we are in a drought. Supposedly.

And yes, I was one of those who didn’t monitor my timer at first, so your “water police” gave me a warning. Hopefully, they are catching and fining those who ignore the edict. So our water bill dropped, as did most everybody else’s bill. Now, the Modesto City Council is going to raise the rates because everyone has cut back on their use, so the utilities are not bringing in enough revenue. What’s wrong with that picture?

Instead of wasting taxpayer dollars on projects that are not really necessary, such as the slurry seal and re-striping on Tully Road, or the massive waste on College with that cockamamie parking, shouldn’t those dollars be used to offset the reduced revenue until such time as the drought is over? City government needs to take a hard look at where they waste our tax dollars and change their thinking. I know! Elect Trump. He’ll fix everything! Yeah, right!

This story was originally published August 15, 2016 at 2:23 PM with the headline "Jeff Morey: If city didn’t waste our dollars, it might not need to raise wate rates."