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Allow sender | Block sender <br />From:Rush Rehm <br />To:GRP-City Council <br />Subject:Water Rate Cost-of-Service Study Concerns <br />Date:Monday, October 13, 2025 2:41:46 PM <br />Caution! This message was sent from outside your organization. <br />Some people who received this message don't often get email from mrehm@stanford.edu. Learn why this isimportant <br />Dear Members of the Redwood City Council: <br />Many of us (long time residents of Redwood City) are deeply concerned about <br />water and sewage rates and the prospect that they will continue to rise. We <br />have done some research on this upward spiral in rates, and we would like to <br />meet with you in advance of the public hearing that the City Council will hold <br />on Monday November 10, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. If that is not possible, we look <br />forward to your addressing our concerns in advance of the public hearing. <br />We are particularly troubled by Redwood City’s Water Rate Cost-of Service <br />Study, which has at least two major shortcomings: <br />1) It proposes a stunning 21% increase in the water bill for the average single <br />family residence (SFR) <br />2) It does not provide an adequate disclosure of such a large proposed increase. <br />To put the proposed increase in context, the San Diego County Water Authority <br />proposed an 18% increase for fiscal 2025 which was later vetoed by the San <br />Diego mayor (a compromise 14% increase resulted). <br />Redwood City bills water use every two months. Page 8 of the report states that <br />average SFR two month water use is 14 HCF (later the report on page 48 <br />mentions 16 HCF but that appears to be in error). Using figures 1-8 and 1-10 of <br />the report, the resulting current average SFR bi-monthly water bill totals <br />$182.65. Also using the same two tables, the average bi-monthly SFR bill <br />increases to $220.90 starting January 1, 2026. This is an increase of $38.25, or <br />21% over the current average monthly bill. <br />Nowhere in the report, or in the executive summary, is such a large percentage <br />increase mentioned. If the report is being used as a primary disclosure <br />document, a reader would need to read at least the executive summary and then <br />manually calculate the percentage increase in the average bill. Instead, in its <br />neighboring agency comparison on page 48 the report describes the average bill <br />monthly equivalent as increasing “slightly” when showing in figure 6-2 an <br />increase from $91.33 per month to $110.45 per month and jumping from <br />11th of 19 agencies to the 5th. We think you'll agree that there’s nothing