LETTERS: Water rate hikes will hit consumers again and again

To the editor:

Pat Mulroy must be a candidate for a job with the Obama administration. She spends 20-plus years running up the debt for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, and when the bill comes due, she runs away with retirement at a relatively early age (“Water rate increase in works,” Wednesday Review-Journal).

When I calculate the average monthly water bill increases by 2017, which were listed in the Review-Journal, I see prices rising for us ordinary folks, not just on water bills for our homes but for the prices of all restaurants, car washes, homeowner associations, newspapers, schools, hospitals, medical centers, malls, commercial laundries, casinos and more.

The article is cleverly written to make it seem as if the ordinary folks, the taxpayers, the consumers, will only see a monthly increase of $4.92 over the next four years. Guess again. From the examples given, the Bellagio will have to come up with an increase of $7,031.29, Southern Highlands Golf Course $6,301.15, Brady Laundry $3,736.12, Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center $1,231.15, and Summerlin HOA $241.73

And all those increases will ultimately be passed on to the ordinary folks, the consumers, the taxpayers. My water bill has an SNWA commodity charge, infrastructure charge and reliability surcharge, which this month was more than double the charge for water. When does this end?

Good luck in your new job, Ms. Mulroy.

MARIE JONES

LAS VEGAS

What about power bill?

To the editor:

I was astonished by the Review-Journal’s front-page banner story Wednesday (“Water rate increase in works”). How can the paper waste so much space on a proposed water rate increase that would apparently raise a single-family home’s bill by a little more than a dollar per year for the next four years?

That space would have better served readers by reporting on the new NV Energy rates, which commence Oct. 1 and will increase residential bills by more than $70 annually. The increase was noted in a billing statement I received from NV Energy on Monday. Someone is not on the ball here. As a longtime reader of the Review-Journal, I expect much more effective reporting.

GEOFFREY MARSH

LAS VEGAS