On April 3, the city Water Board continued its annual ritual of treating city water ratepayers as a cash cow that keeps on giving. Its proposal to raise city water rates comes on the heels of its rate increases of 14 percent in 2008 and 12 percent in 2007, which translates to a combined increase over three years of over 45 percent.
While these increases are a sin against our city’s middle class and speak to a disconnect between this mayoral administration and the struggles ordinary New Yorkers are going through, there is a larger sin that continues to remain under the radar.
Every year, as part of a bum lease that originated with the creation of the board, the mayor can opt to take more than is required to pay off the pre−1985 debt service the board had accrued. This residual payment will amount in fiscal year 2010 to over $123 million that our mayor will funnel into the city’s general fund to pay for non−water related services.
The residual payment remains only under the option of the mayor and our Water Board as per the language of this lease, leaving the City Council without the ability to rectify the situation. Since the middle of this decade, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has opted to take this residual payment instead of finding new revenue sources and sparing city water ratepayers. While the middle class of our city struggles with layoffs and tightening its belts, our mayor continues to go back to the well and soak our hardworking citizenry.
While this practice remains egregious, the soaking of city water ratepayers goes further. Funds from water rate collection go to reimburse other city agencies, like the FDNY for inspecting fire hydrants ($5 million), $30 million for the Sanitation Department for street sweeping and over $3 million for other city services, all with tenuous relationships to actual benefits to our water supply.
Every year, our elected officials, including Councilman James Gennaro (D−Fresh Meadows), stand up against these regressive taxes against the water ratepayers. Last year, 41 council members stood with him to say in one voice that this practice was unsustainable and asking our mayor to opt not to take the residual payment. This would have reduced the increase to a mere 3 percent.
The Long Island City Alliance, which strives to improve the quality of life in the neighborhood and surrounding area, understands that the city faces large deficits and tough choices in this year’s budget, but placing a large regressive tax on the middle class is not the way to close the gap. Other options that our mayor seems to be resisting, like taxing those making over $250,000, need to be looked at as we collectively need to tighten our belts.
We implore Bloomberg to spare city water ratepayers from their annual unnecessary soaking.
Brian Beard
Dan Jacoby
Costa Constantinides
Steven Beard
Georgina Young−Ellis
Executive Board
Long Island City Alliance
Long Island City
