We've been water boarded. Don’t believe me? Just check your recently mailed quarterly utilities invoice for Oct. 1, 2015 to Dec. 31, 2015.
Amnesty International says water boarding is torture. So does the United States Supreme Court. That’s why, when the CIA wants to water board prisoners, it keeps them outside America in Guantanamo Bay. But that’s physical water boarding; ours is fiscal and the torture is to our wallets.
Greater Vernon Water utility has refined their local technique of water boarding (with the rubber stamping connivance of RDNO political appointees) into an esoteric art form that gouges the pocketbooks of each and every one of us.
In 2010, we were charged a base fee of $50.17 per quarter that included up to 10 cubic metres of water at no additional charge. Our base fee then was in the upper quartile of normal municipal practice and the amount of water included was in the lower quartile. A bit pricey for what we got but still not totally out-of-whack with what other cities were doing.
Our latest base fee has jumped to $101.80 per quarter, it does not include a single drop of water and that is for a commodity that is absolutely essential for life. That’s $407.20 to Greater Vernon Water per annum for Sweet Fanny Adams. That is the fiscal water boarding you and I are being subjected to. It makes Greater Vernon Water unique. It puts us completely off the charts. It is unlikely that any other city in Canada charges so much for so little. And, have you heard? It isn’t going to stop ... our water utility has just asked for another two per cent raise.
Speak up now or forever hold your peace. Shake off your voter complacency and become outspoken. Greater Vernon Water and their political enablers are counting on your lack of participation to let them serve their wants rather than our needs.
Are you going to continue letting them soak you for millions to treat water to drinking quality standards then spray it on such low value crops as hay and silage corn? Are you going to stay mute when you see overhead crop irrigation occurring on windy or hot sunny days when most of it goes to waste?
Well, if you do not speak up my voice will just be lost in the wilderness as was that of Coldstream councilor Gyula Kiss.
Seems that with regard to water our plutocratic and politico mantra is to either ignore or give the squeaky wheel the boot.
That’s led to us being water boarded and why it is necessary for you and me to take action if we want it to stop. Defeating the water referendum was not sufficient.
We need to put a stop to the indecisive dithering and get a solution.
Juliette Cunningham and Jim Garlick preside over what happens to water. Make sure they hear your voice.
Jim Bodkin
Vernon