MY TAKE (Continued from page 8)
customers, usage in Goleta averages 0.66 AFY per metered customer, compared to 0.77 AFY per metered customer in Montecito, not a significant difference, belying the Angry Poodle’s claim of four times the use by Montecito. So, the Poodle may want to rethink his position. Montecito residents have one of the best conservation records in the state and can no longer be described as the “water hogs” their detractors once said they were.
Floyd Wicks Vindicated
Nick Welsh did make a great point when he debunked mean-spirited rumors unleashed by two sitting Montecito Water District (MWD) Board directors, that Floyd Wicks, a candidate for a seat on the Montecito Water District Board, would try to privatize the water district. Welsh’s response: “Wicks has forgotten more about water districts than I’ll ever know... I don’t buy the bogeyman talk that he’s in it to privatize the District. That’s fear-mongering.” The other half of Welsh’s column claims that Montecito customers pay about half as much for water as Santa Barbara ratepayers. That is untrue doggie doo. Low-usage customers in Montecito pay twice as much for water as Santa Barbara customers do on a comparative basis, when you add in MWD’s drought water surcharges of $3.45 per HCF and rationing penalties of $3.2 million last year, which equates to an additional $2.16 in rate per HCF in Montecito. Most importantly, desalination capital costs of $55 million and desalination plant annual operating costs of $4.1 million per year have already been built into the Santa Barbara water rates, forcing rates upward and distorting the comparison. Current MWD water rates provide no funding to pay for desalination, nor the funding of $23 million to complete the replacement of corroded, aged, and leaking pipes and mains in Montecito; nor is there any money in MWD rates to deliver recycled water via “purple pipe,” as in Santa Barbara, Goleta, Carpinteria, and Oxnard. When the latest consultant-driven “Cost of Service and Water Rate Study” is finally delivered to MWD, we will likely see some significant upticks in MWD rates. A better exercise is to compare water rates in Goleta with water rates in Montecito, because both districts have no cost for desalination capital costs or operating costs built into their current rates. Goleta’s three tiers of water rates for single-family residential users range in cost from a low of $7.34 to a high of $8.99 per HCF. MWD’s four tiers of water rates range in cost from a low of $11.01 to a high of $14.11 per HCF when factoring in MWD’s collection of an additional $3.2 million in rationing penalty fees, equating to an extra $2.16 per HCF to Montecito water bills. That means that Montecito water rates are 50% higher at the low-end use and 57% higher at the high end than water rates in Goleta. It is hard to argue that MWD water rates are half those of either Santa Barbara or Goleta, especially when the data shows the reverse, that rates are actually 50% higher in Montecito. Further proof of higher water rates in Montecito than Goleta can be found in the MWD board’s awful recent decision to allow Goleta to sell its excess recycled water to Montecito at $90 per HCF including delivery charges, while Goleta charges its own customers $3.36 per HCF for recycled water.
Re-use of Recycled Water
Every gallon of recycled water not dumped into the ocean and instead used to irrigate landscaping preserves potable water. For the last 10 years, the MWD Board has been the only water board on the South Coast to ignore recycled water. This lack of environmental stewardship alone should give cause to question MWD Board leadership, which has not invested one penny in recycled water, a reliable and sustainable local source. Why is Montecito still dumping 600,000 gallons each day of treated water off Butterfly Beach when that 750 AFY of recycled water could be used to keep Montecito’s trees alive? Add in the current board’s dismal record: a failure to manage Montecito’s groundwater basin; a failure to negotiate a desalination deal with the City of Santa Barbara last fall, instead relying on a false El Niño promise of record rainfall; and a failure to heed Dr. Steven Bachman’s warning in March 2007 to bank more water in wet periods because Lake Cachuma will go dry in periods of extended drought. That depressing record should be grounds for a board recall.
LETTERS (Continued from page 22)
district’s current space crunch. If the schools miss the chance to acquire this property, it would be a tremendous permanent loss. Measure I is for the city’s secondary schools and is a $135-million bond estimated to cost the average homeowner $12 per $100,000 of assessed value. Measure J is for the city’s elementary schools and is a $58-million bond estimated to cost the average homeowner $13 dollars per $100,000 of assessed value. Not a penny of this money will go toward teachers’ salaries or administrative costs. It will all go toward replacement of portables, safety upgrades, and improvements in classroom learning environments and hopefully toward the aforementioned Armory purchase. At a time when we have so many nasty and negative things to explain to our children, let’s at least be able to tell them that we are coming together as a community to invest in their futures by supporting our schools, so that they can grow up to be intelligent and educated enough to fix a political system that is broken and, frankly, stresses us out. Please vote “Yes” on Measures I and J. Gwyn Lurie Montecito
Newman’s the Man
After becoming aware of the intensity and money being expended by the Floyd Wicks-Tobe Plough team running for the Montecito Water Board, I decided to attend their presentation at the Music Academy. Hearing rumors that they wanted to privatize the Water District, I was pleased to hear that was not the case. At the candidates’ forum, I was confused about their thoughts regarding consideration that residents might sell their unused water. This seems not in the spirit of the good stewardship needed to promote conserving and properly managing this vital resource. Additionally, I am very worried
about how Mr. Wicks’s former company, Golden State Water, mismanaged the affairs of Ojai’s water district. Claims regarding inadequate attention to water infrastructure led to 87 percent of Ojai residents voting to oust Golden State and turn operations over to the Municipal Water District. It is hard to support a track record of this sort or any vision that does not fully appreciate that water is a public resource. I strongly support Charles Newman’s candidacy for the MWD based upon the important changes he has already championed toward recycling, collaboration with local agencies, and neighboring communities to broaden our portfolio of water resources and improved transparency of the MWD. Bob Kupiec Montecito
Pray for Rain
I have with great interest read the many letters about the water crisis. Please consider the following: Many say that since approximately 1996, all weather is controlled (Google “Chemtrails”). The aluminum content on the surface of the ground is today 500 times above normal. Many allege that the skies are being seeded with aluminum particles and that stops all rain. On a day with blue skies, you can see the long trails after planes. In the old days, these “trails” would disappear – but today they get wider and stay. To have rain, very simply, you seed the clouds with silver oxide particles. Then it rains within about three miles. Of this there is no doubt; in Texas I often have seen farmers hiring small planes to seed the clouds. All of what I write was also recently documented on the History Channel, in a one-hour program called Weather Control. In beautiful California, food pro-
LETTERS Page 304
In CommerCIal realReal estate E InvestInvest In Commercial
MONTECITO
REAL ESTATE INVESTMENTS
S T U A R T F U STUART SS S A MSAMANTHA A N T H AFRIEDMAN FRIEDM A N JANSEN TANNE FUSS TANNER PRINCIPAL, BROKER SENIOR ASSOCIATE SALES ASSOCIATE This Election Choice PRINCIPAL, BROKER SENIOR ASSOCIATE SALES ASS stuart@montecitorei.com samantha@montecitorei.com tanner@montecitorei.com stuart@montecitorei.com tanner@mo samantha@montecitorei.com If you believe that fresh ideas and positive planning can secure a more reliLic#: 00859105 Lic#: 01873499 Lic#: 01981764
#: 00859105 Lic #: 0198176 Lic #: 01873499 able water future for our community, please support Floyd Lic Wicks and Tobe www.MontecitoREI.com 201 W. Montecito Street, Santa Barbara, Ca 93101 (805) 565-4500 Plough as candidates for the board of the Montecito Water District (MWD). •MJ www.MontecitoREI.com • 201 W. Montecito Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 •
3 – 10 November 2016
Dictators aren’t in the business of allowing elections that could remove them from their thrones. ~ Gene Sharp
MONTECITO JOURNAL
25