Thawing the rate freeze (January 24, 2017)
Thank goodness we have Scott Nassif to guide us! Even though he’s been wrong (and wrong-headed) for years about just about every aspect of our water system here in Apple Valley, it stands to reason that at some point he’d finally be correct about something.
So despite Liberty Utilities calling its latest filing a rate freeze, and the California Public Utilities Commission calling it a rate freeze, and the Office of Ratepayer Advocates calling it a rate freeze, and the fact that rates will be frozen, we can all rest assured that it is not actually a rate freeze because, as Mr. Nassif sagaciously pointed out, Liberty’s previous filing was a rate increase (Liberty Utilities water rates frozen for more than 2 years,
Daily Press, January 24, 2017).
To couch it in other terms, even if you think you are driving straight down a straight road, you’re not really driving straight down a straight road because previously, you made a turn. What an epiphany.
There may be those inclined to doubt Mr. Nassif, seeing as how the Town has 1) lost millions, 2) become millions of dollars in the hole, and 3) accumulated millions more in unfunded future liabilities on his watch, but haters gonna hate.
After all, the Town has been promising it can stabilize rates once it spends hundreds of millions of dollars to buy something we already have, so if this rate freeze really stabilized rates, certainly Mr. Nassif would be among the first to let us know.
Look: Who are you going to believe, a company that wants to invest millions into making Apple Valley a better place to live, or a guy who has really thawed this through — even though he is helping run Apple Valley into the ground?
— Greg Raven is Co-Chair of Apple Valley Citizens for Government Accountability, and is concerned about quality of life issues.