Epcor Water West Valley (Tucson, Glendale: balloon payment, sale, HOA)

[johnnyrotten54]

Anyone else experiencing jacked up water bills from EPCOR WATER. They serve the west valley for sure and I'm not sure of north oe east or south valley. They bought out Arizona American Water. Since the buyout my water bill has increased 80%. I'm looking to contact 3 on your side about this issue and am looking to enlist an army to help fight this. I'm also thinking about calling Channel 12 also. Anyone interested PM. me your contact info and if I can get either channel interested I will contact you. This Canadian company has to be stopped from price gouging Arizona residents. As 1 I cannot do alot but as an army we will overpower!
Thanks
Johnny

Oh and If the mods think they need to remove this post PM me and let me know if I can go about this in a different manner!!
Thanks

[johnp292]

I have them in Anthem. We just moved in 3 months ago and I was expecting higher water bills than I'm used to, but the bills I'm seeing are outrageous, in the $200 month range. We're trying to figure out if we're using too much water.

[foma]

We used to live in the heart of Buckeye and our water bill never went above $50/mo, averaging probably closer to $35/mo. Then we moved closer into town and our bill sky rocketed to $120-150/mo with AZ AMerican Water. They turned into EPCORE and we haven't gone below $200/mo. The past couple of months it's over $250.

We're a family of 3, no pool, no pets. How much friggin' water could we possibly be using? I do admit we had a leak in our irrigation system which probably contributed to the increased cost but seriously, $250 a month for a water bill? OUTRAGEOUS.

Our neighborhood had a whole town meeting thing that I couldn't go to b'c of my daughter so I just figured "you snooze, you lose". I had my chance and I blew it to speak up.

[johnnyrotten54]

Got an answer from Gary Harper from Channel 3 and he said he got screwed by epcor too but channel 3 at this time couldn't do anything for me. Oh well got a return call from Chuck Long will call him back today and see what he says. Oh and Gary also recomended not voting for the people on the Arizona Corporation Commission, because they are the ones who approved the increase......Time for us people to start cleaning house and voting out people who don't have our interests @ heart. And personally I feel (can't prove it) so I should say alledgely that there might have been some $$$passed under the table to have the ACC vote this 80% increase in!!

MY opinion only.

And believe me when they come up for re-election I will vote them out.
Paul Newman, Brenda Burns,Gary Pierce ,Bob Stump, and Sandra D. Kennedy are the incumbents who allowed and voted for this increase.......We gotta get them out and send a very important message to future commissioners that we need you to help us not hurt us!!

[observer53]

Originally Posted by johnnyrotten54

Got an answer from Gary Harper from Channel 3 and he said he got screwed by epcor too but channel 3 at this time couldn't do anything for me. Oh well got a return call from Chuck Long will call him back today and see what he says. Oh and Gary also recomended not voting for the people on the Arizona Corporation Commission, because they are the ones who approved the increase......Time for us people to start cleaning house and voting out people who don't have our interests @ heart. And personally I feel (can't prove it) so I should say alledgely that there might have been some $$$passed under the table to have the ACC vote this 80% increase in!!

MY opinion only.

And believe me when they come up for re-election I will vote them out.
Paul Newman, Brenda Burns,Gary Pierce ,Bob Stump, and Sandra D. Kennedy are the incumbents who allowed and voted for this increase.......We gotta get them out and send a very important message to future commissioners that we need you to help us not hurt us!!

Was it a unamimous vote?

[sells500]

We had these discussions in the west valley last year with them and lost to an over 65% increase. I don't know where everyone was then we sure could have used a show of power. It appears a deal was made to complete the sale before epcor would buy it az water had to raise the rates because of another previous deal, az water was supposed to profit from the install of water mains in new housing to pay for a very expensive water plant they built and was to be paid for by new homes connecting to it. Even though the economy was tanking and new housing became what it is today, az water decided to go through with this project anyway, when the economy tanked and they weren't getting revenue to pay for it they decided to sell, epcor stepped in to buy, but said the rates must go up first and you know the rest.

[sells500]

Anthem got screwed because a sweetheart deal was made with developers and az water for a balloon payment after I think 5 years for the connections to water, developers never disclosed this to new buyers and bam payment is now due.

[johnnyrotten54]

I heard that yes it was a unanimous vote.

And Back when all this was going on I guess I was just moving to the west valley and was unaware of [snip--language] what was going on. Wish I had knew I would have been more vocal!!

And to Arizona American Water........sorry that the housing industry tanked and all the new houses weren't built as fast as you had hoped. One of the perils of doing bussiness! And why should we all have to pay for your misfortune? I know when the Wife and I had a major misfortune in our lives we had no one to bail us out.....eventhough we could have used it!! I know I have and everyone else who had a new home built in the west valley paid money up front to help pay for the infrastructure(a portion of the house sale price went to them). and Just because Epcor wouldn't buy Arizona American Water until some of this debt was going to be off set somehow..........What happens now that the housing Industry has started to recover and people again start paying $$$$out of the sale price to fund the infrastructure again? Is this considered a windfall for EPCOR and are we goin to get reimbursed for the inflated water cost?? I don't think so.

I also called other water companies to see what their rates were to compare and boy was I shocked.
...........................Liberty water.............Glendale water.............Community Water.................. Tucson Water............................EPCOR
Basic Chg for
1" meter ............... $22.95.....................$17.40................. ........$24.00.................................... $16.23................................$49.50
3/4" meter $10.20....................$12.30.................. .......$13.00....................................$ 10.92................................$19.50
5/8" Meter ..............$10.20................... $ 9.70......................... $13.00....................................$ 8.27................................ $19.50

Usage charge
0-5k .......................$ 1.00............ 0-6k $2.14 ..................0-21k $ 2.50........................... 1-10k $ 1.26....................... 0-45k $3.8958
5-20k..................... $ 1.91............ 7-15k $2.68 .................21k+ $3.42 ...........................10-15k $ 2.45
20k+ ......................$3.03 ...........16-30k $3.76 .................................................. ...........16-30k $6.45
So as you all can see EPCOR is way out of line then the 4 other water companies I surveyed.
I feel that instead of raising the rates ........... they should have maybe imposed an acessement of let's say $1,000 per home owner payable over 10 years. That would have been $100 per year........A little more palatable yes??

So after talking to channel 3, channel 12, the ACC, Epcor, and Several of the water companies it seems like I once again am trying to BEAT A DEAD HORSE. The last option is to get ahold of a Lawyer and see if I could start a class action suit against EPCOR.
Unless someone else has any good ideas.....I'll let this Thread Lie!!
OH and If I get a Lawyer to take this on I'll let all know..........Thanks and Sorry!

[jimj]

Originally Posted by johnnyrotten54

Anyone else experiencing jacked up water bills from EPCOR WATER. They serve the west valley for sure and I'm not sure of north oe east or south valley. They bought out Arizona American Water. Since the buyout my water bill has increased 80%. I'm looking to contact 3 on your side about this issue and am looking to enlist an army to help fight this. I'm also thinking about calling Channel 12 also. Anyone interested PM. me your contact info and if I can get either channel interested I will contact you. This Canadian company has to be stopped from price gouging Arizona residents. As 1 I cannot do alot but as an army we will overpower!
Thanks
Johnny

Oh and If the mods think they need to remove this post PM me and let me know if I can go about this in a different manner!!
Thanks

You betcha!!! Our bill went from $45 to $70 as soon as they took over. Not to mention we now get 2 bills, one for water and one for sewer.
We did get a letter saying water would be going up but had NO idea it'd be this bad.

[jimj]

Originally Posted by sells500

We had these discussions in the west valley last year with them and lost to an over 65% increase. I don't know where everyone was then we sure could have used a show of power. It appears a deal was made to complete the sale before epcor would buy it az water had to raise the rates because of another previous deal, az water was supposed to profit from the install of water mains in new housing to pay for a very expensive water plant they built and was to be paid for by new homes connecting to it. Even though the economy was tanking and new housing became what it is today, az water decided to go through with this project anyway, when the economy tanked and they weren't getting revenue to pay for it they decided to sell, epcor stepped in to buy, but said the rates must go up first and you know the rest.

I know our HOA submitted objections as did several others including Sun City. I would have thought just Sun City with all their voting residents would have been enough to slap it down. Guess these "officials" aren't too concerned with being kicked out.