Despite efforts by business groups, community activists, mayors and several Southern California water agencies to stop unecessary rate hikes and increased property tax collection by the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the board voted to increase spending by $75 million instead of returning the money or rolling back rate increases. The Southeast Water Coalition Joint [...]
The Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is pushing ahead with water rate increases despite projections it will over-collect from Southern California ratepayers more than $217 million in excess of its needs this fiscal year alone. In spite of this fact, on April 9, MWD’s board decided to increase its readiness-to-serve charge by [...]
OC Watchdog reporter Keegan Kyle reported recently on MWD’s growing mountain of debt to fund an uncommon retirement benefit: lifetime health care for employees and their spouses. These costs, he wrote, will eventually be passed on to water ratepayers in the form of higher rates. He also reported that MWD has accumulated $545 million in debt to [...]
Public records show a Riverside County water agency is funding a $15,000-per-month public relations campaign in San Diego County on behalf of the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The full scope and objectives of the public relations effort are unknown because Eastern’s officials are refusing to comply with state public records law and turn over [...]
Southern California water agencies have plans to potentially develop between 400,000 and 1.2 million acre-feet local water supply by 2035. These plans will have a direct impact on future demand for water from the Bay-Delta, helping achieve the dual goals established in the 2009 water bill package. The data was collected from the Urban Water Management plans [...]
An investigative news team from KGTV-Channel 10 recently examined how the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California spent ratepayer money over a five month period. The expenditures include the hiring of a $150,000- salaried PR person in San Diego and nearly $25,000 for airfare for out-of-state executives to fly to meetings. The spending occurred as MWD justified raising rates for the sixth consecutive [...]
The San Diego County Water Authority is calling for MWD to hold its policy discussions in the MWD board room, not in backrooms across Southern California. On October 4, the Water Authority’s General Manager sent a letter asking several MWD member agency managers to end MWD’s practice of discussing MWD agenda items in a series of [...]
Long before financial advice came from Suze Orman and Warren Buffett, there was Mr. Micawber. A character from Charles Dickens’ novel, “David Copperfield,” Mr. Micawber’s “hopeful expectation” that something will turn up wasn’t enough to keep him out of debtor’s prison. Now known as the “Micawber Principle,” the simple idea of living within one’s means [...]
UPDATED: More than a month ago, the Water Authority released a draft report produced by several Southern California water agencies that was to be the centerpiece of a major p.r. campaign to confuse the public about the costs related to the Water Authority’s water transfer agreement with the Imperial Irrigation District. The draft report, discovered [...]
Water agencies across Southern California are beginning to listen to ratepayer’s calls for cutting costs and capping rate increases at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Central Basin Municipal Water District, which serves about 2 million people in the southeast Los Angeles-area, sent a news statement asking MWD to rescind the rate increases it [...]
MWD Board shoots down ratepayer-sensitive Water Authority plan that would have capped average MWD rate increases at 3 percent a year for next two years Disregarding public concern over rapidly rising water rates, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s board of directors today approved raising its “average” water rates by 5 percent in 2013 [...]
MWD Fiction: MWD water rates and charges continue to increase, driven primarily by the need to maintain and repair important MWD water facilities such as the Colorado River Aqueduct. FACT: The truth is that MWD has a spending problem. A business that experiences a sharp drop in sales or a cut to its income normally has [...]
MWD Fiction: Recent increases in MWD water rates and charges are driven primarily by the need to maintain and repair important MWD water facilities such as the Colorado River Aqueduct. FACT: When MWD’s water sales decline, the cost of each unit of water sold rises. This is really the primary driver behind MWD’s water rates, which have [...]
MWD Fiction: Recent increases in MWD water rates and charges are driven primarily by increasing costs of its capital improvement program. FACT: Declining water sales, not spending on capital facilities are driving MWD’s increasing water rates. While capital projects and corresponding debt service payments have contributed to MWD’s water rate increases, they are not the primary driver of the [...]
The California Public Records Act is a series of laws that are collectively called “Sunshine Laws.” These laws were designed to guarantee that the public has access to public records of governmental bodies. In fact, in writing the legislation, the California Legislature reiterated, “Access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business is a fundamental [...]
MWD Fiction: Recent increases in MWD water rates and charges are driven primarily by the need to maintain and repair important MWD water facilities such as the Colorado River Aqueduct. Welcome to Fact vs. Fiction, where MWD fictions run headlong into the facts. Today’s fiction focuses on MWD’s assertion that recent increases in its water [...]
MWD General Manager Jeffrey Kightlinger sent a letter to U-T San Diego Chairman and Publisher Doug Manchester last Friday. He wanted to let the paper know that the Secret Society alias used in several emails was just a “joke.” His letter did not address why the group uses a secret website… or private gmail accounts… or why they [...]
MWD hates this web site. We know, because their lawyers told us so. The Water Authority received a letter last week from MWD’s attorneys, asking us to take down this web site. We refused. MWDFacts is an important forum for presenting noncommercial, unbiased information for the public to understand why their water rates are going up, and [...]
Detailed documents describing how the Metropolitan Water District and a majority of its member agencies worked together to set rates, develop policies and discriminate against San Diego County water ratepayers are now available online. The more than 500 pages of documents, which were obtained under the California Public Records Act, reveal a “Secret Society” organized [...]
PUBLIC RECORDS ACT RECORDS REVEAL: Undisclosed Southern California Water Agencies Spend $50,000 of Ratepayer Money to Fund So-Called “Independent” Economic Study Supported by the Metropolitan Water District. Records recently obtained from an Orange County water agency under a California Public Records Act request have revealed that an undisclosed number of Southern California public water agencies [...]
Read Metropolitan Water District’s media statement about its “open and transparent public forums and discussions” and “the deliberative process where all member agencies attempt to work collaboratively to resolve differences.” John V. Foley, chairman of Metropolitan Water District’s Board of Directors, issues the following statement regarding the San Diego County Water Authority’s new “MWD Facts” [...]
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