I’ve always liked WMBD’s news, and the 10:00 news last night was great. They led off with the water company buyout vote and had a live interview with Gary Sandberg, the swing vote in the 6-5 decision. He explained his surprise vote in favor of the buyout. I didn’t see anything close to that thorough of coverage on the other news stations. This was good reporting and a great service to Peoria residents. Way to go!
Daily Archives: April 20, 2005
Grayeb: IAWC is “ripping us off”
Chuck Grayeb gave an impassioned speech at last night’s city council meeting. He said something along the lines of the “foreign-owned” water company “ripping off” the residents of Peoria. He mentioned several times that our rates are among the highest in the state, and that the Illinois Commerce Commission gives Illinois American Water Company (IAWC) everything it asks for.
Now, if someone is charging you a little much for a service, you might say they are “kind of expensive.” If they’re noticeably higher than average, you might say they’re “taking advantage of us.” But someone would have to really be gouging you — or something would have to be grossly overpriced — to be described as a “rip off.”
If it were true that IAWC was “ripping us off,” don’t you think that if the city ran it that prices would go down? I mean, the only difference is going to be the loan/purchase costs, right? The revenue stream is going to stay the same — we’re not going to lose any customers in the deal — people aren’t going to be using any less water if the city buys the company. So why are our rates going to have to increase 3% each year under city ownership?
The answer is that IAWC is not ripping us off. The reason the city wants to buy the water company is so it can have another source of revenue to fund its projects — some of which are laudable, but many of which are questionable. They tried to sell the idea to the voters as a savings for Peoria residents; when it came out that it wasn’t going to save us anything, but in fact cost us more, they said the reason to buy the water company was because we didn’t want the profits going to a German-owned company, but staying here in the community. When the residents voted overwhelmingly not to buy it at $220 million knowing all this information, the city said the voters were uninformed. The real reason people voted against it was because they didn’t think it would be affordable in the long-run; now that we know the new financing numbers and level-debt scenario, the clairvoyant Grayeb is sure that the voters would have decided differently.
These kinds of games are the very reason voters don’t trust the council and don’t want them to buy the water company. But it’s too late now. Look out, CILCO — you could be next!