Wastewater Rate Case: 5 Things You Need to Know

1. The Rate proposals
The Commission ordered EPCOR to come up with three options:  Stay the same, de-consolidate, or fully consolidate all customers under a single rate.  Here are the numbers for each proposal:

EPCOR, like us, wants full consolidation (option 3).  Sun City wants anything but option three.

2. EPCOR Community Meeting
Now that the Commission has accepted EPCOR's rate case submission, they plan to come out to Verrado, as well as other impacted communities, and give a full briefing.  They're planning on July, but no dates have been announced as yet.  They have suggested they will be coming back around later in the year as things develop, which will give our seasonal residents a chance to hear them first hand as well.

3.  The timeline
The rate case timeline targets January 2017 for a hearing to decide the case.  That's pretty fast by ACC standards, and we would expect it to be pushed out at least somewhat.  But, January 2017 is the earliest the Commission will be expected to vote.

4.  The campaign
We will kick off our letter writing campaign in early September.  If you participated last time, the general method will be the same, except we will change up the letters monthly, rather than weekly. We'll provide suggested letters and text you can mail or email to the Commission, helping us to make our case.  Or, you can always write your own.

5.  What we're doing
We will be pursuing this case from all angles to get the best outcome for Verrado residents.  Here are the high points:

• DMB has hired a great attorney who specializes in utility matters
• A member of the Utilities Council (UC) will ALSO intervene in the case to testify and provide the resident point of view
• We will all coordinate our efforts and testimony
• The UC will also continue to work behind the scenes with all impacted communities to resolve any difference in advance
• The UC will manage the community campaign to encourage every resident who wishes to be heard
• The UC will again advocate for a Public Comment Hearing in or near Verrado.
• The UC will keep the community up to date on any developments in the case

As we go forward, we will put out information across as many channels as possible around Verrado to make it easy to keep informed.