Sun City Grand®
Community Association
Management
Dear Sun City
Grand Homeowners and
Residents,
In order to send your comments in regards to the proposed
water rate increase directly to the Arizona Corporation Commission please
send an e-mail to:
Mailmaster@azcc.gov
You must include reference to the Docket
No. W-01303A-10-0448. I
encourage you to call them as well at 602-542-4251 or 1-800-222-7000 and
document your call time and who you spoke with.
Here are some comments you may want to include (if they
apply to you and/or you are in agreement with them). Please
use your own words (don't just copy and paste) as
it is my experience with the Arizona Corporation Commission that they tend
to put more stock in letters that are not just identical repeats of what
they have already read.
- You tried to contact the
ACC using the Arizona Corporation Commission Public Comment Form they
provided, however because of problems with the form you were not able to
enter comments in the comment section or send the form.
- You were not informed of
the pending rate increase by Arizona American Water, several months ago
when it was applied for and were only made aware of it through your homeowners
association.
- Thousands of people in
the Agua Fria water district are going to see an increase in their water
bill of approximately 80%, yet only 2 associations have filed to
intervene, this alone should raise a red flag that proper notification
was not done.
- When Mitzi Mills,
Executive Director of Sun
City Grand asked City
of Surprise Council Members about this issue, they were not aware of it,
and they as well were not aware that the name of the water district that
many of their homeowners were in was Agua Fria, Another clear indicator
that proper notification of the water district name and the pending
increase were not communicated to the citizens.
- You were never told or
provided a map by Arizona American Water showing that your water
district was the Agua Fria Water District and therefore any
communications or articles that referenced an increase in the Agua Fria
Water District would not have alerted you that you personally may
experience a rate increase.
- You have never received
a notification inviting you to a public meeting to hear from Arizona
American Water on this issue and you would like to see public hearings
held on this issue.
- Not only will this water
rate increase raise your personal water bill approximately 80%, it will
raise the association water bill by the same amount, which close to a
half a million dollars. As a homeowner in an association you have the
potential for an increase in your annual assessment of $50.00 to cover
this increase.
- Arizona American Water
(AAW) built a $62 million dollar water treatment plant (White Tank
Water Treatment Plant) in anticipation of water needs of
thousands of homes that were not yet built and as a result of the
decline in the economy still have not been built. In anticipation of
future growth the Arizona Corporation Commission approved the building
of the plant. The entire cost of this plant was to be paid for by water
hook up fees from NEW customers and the developers building new
developments. Since these developments were never built AAW is now
returning to the Arizona Corporation Commission asking for an increase
in existing customer fees in order to pay the loan on the White
Tank Mountain Water Plant.
- Even when Arizona
American Water knew that development if the Agua Fria Water District had
come to a halt, they still proceeded and build the plant, they did not
stop construction or scale back construction. The result is a plant
that was built to 100% capacity and is only operating at 11%.
- Sun City Grand up until
the building of this plant operated off of wells. Late last year
Arizona American Water turned some of those wells off, and now many of
our residents are receiving their water from the White
Tank Mountain plant.
This has resulted in some residents experiencing very hard
water and the need to
purchase water softeners - another added expense. We believe they did
this to show the need for the plant and justify spreading the expense of
building the plant over existing customers, when it reality the plant
was built for future customers.
- Since new homes were not
built Arizona America Water wants someone to pay back the $62 million
dollar investment that they have not received by collecting new hook up
and development fees.
Sincerely,
Mitzi Mills, PCAM, CMCA
Executive Director
19726 N.
Remington Dr., Surprise, AZ 85374
Office Phone: 623-546-7468
Cell Phone: 623-764-2659
Fax: 623-546-7447
Email: mitzi.mills@scgcam.com
