It's the gift that keeps on giving. Members of Indianapolis' downtown mafia made hundreds of millions of dollars through a series of flips in the ownership of the Indianapolis Water Company before it wound up under the control of Citizens Energy. Each sale of ownership was quickly followed by a series of double-digit rate increases. The overpaid, top-heavy management at Citizens Energy is back seeking yet another 20% rate increase next year. They always couch their rate increases in the least-offending way. It's only $6 a month they say. Add that to the $30 a month average bill, and it's a 20% increase. The utility obtained approval to raise rates by 9% last year after originally seeking a 15% rate increase. The utility also got approval to raise waste water rates by 26%.
Rates have more than doubled over the past decade. Mayor Greg Ballard's latest sale of the water company to Citizen's Energy is largely to blame. The water company was already saddled with more than a billion dollars in debt, and our doofus mayor convinced the City-County Council that it was a good idea to tack a half billion dollars in additional debt on to the purchase of the water company so he could blow the money lining the pockets of his campaign contributors. The deal was nothing more than a series of bribes, payoffs and kickbacks to a group of elite insiders who get rich at our expense. They believe the public is too distracted by their unhealthy attention to sports and pop culture to comprehend what's happening to them, and they're right.
Gary, you are far too kind in terming the corpulent, low intellect, thoroughly corrupt megalomaniacal (and I have to believe psychologically flawed) RINO Greg Ballard as a "doofus". He is more than a doofus. He is crook and a liar and my allegations can be proved, and proved over again, via his own Admin's paperwork and statements that have been shown to be intentional deceptions.
ReplyDeleteOf course that Water Company sale was a rigged deal to make millions for the corrupt attorney firms that worked on the travesty, the bond houses that sold the paper, and Lord knows what kickbacks were involved. Our utility bills do nothing but go up and up and we have Republican RINO Greg Ballard to thank.
If even his ILLEGAL VisionFleet lawlessness brings him to justice and sent to federal prison, I'd be surprised. There are too many Judges who owe favors to the corrupt attorneys who own and run Ballard. How the hell did we elect such a pathetic creep masquerading as a real man?
. "How the hell did we elect such a pathetic creep masquerading as a real man?"
ReplyDeleteTo get rid of the really pathetic creep named Bart Peterson. If there is corruption then why didn't Hogsett go after them and why doesn't the powers that be start indicting them now? So, one can only assume that corruption is rampant and belongs to both parties and we are unable to do anything about it except write nasty comments. That means I will take this crook over any Democrat that also lines his pocket. At least Ballard gives us a visual of that spending -we can see where the money has gone along with pocket lining. With the Democrats you see zero progress in your line of sight and they really steal it all.
While Citizens Indy may have an average monthly water bill of $30, Citizens Westfield residential average water bill is $80. I suppose that rate hike will apply here too? 20% would make our water about $96 per month. I used pay less than that for IPL when I lived in MarCo.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably time to send Citizens, the IURC and the UCC my annual (at a minimum) request for transperancy in our bills, as follows:
ReplyDeleteSince it appears that the Citizens Energy user fee theft will be approved regardless of the implications of such approval, I propose, for the sake of transparency, that our water and sewer bills be itemized so that everyone knows how much is being stolen from them each and every time a payment is remitted. So, at a minimum the water and sewer bill should indicate the portion of each sewer bill dedicated to payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT), including the 30-year bond payments (City Tax); should indicate the portion of the water and sewer bill paid to the City (2010 Street and Sidewalk Repairs – 30-Year Bond / Rebuild Indy) for the transfer the water and sewer utilities; should indicate the cost of the water company extricating itself from the variable-rate bond fiasco (Cost of Auction-rate Bond Fiasco), and should indicate the payoff to Veolia after providing poor service and poor water quality (Cost of Privatization).
When Bart Peterson and Beurt SerVaas cut a deal to buy the water company from NiSource just a few years after they bought it, plundered all of its most valuable assets and performed no maintenance on the system, we were told if we didn't buy the water company at the premium NiSource sold it to us, the water company would fall into foreign ownership. It turned out we assumed responsibility for golden parachute payoffs to Jim Morris and his executive team of about $9 million. SerVaas had already made arrangements for Veolia, the French company, to assume management of the company for an extraordinarily high annual management fee. Of course, Veolia was ordered to provide a bunch of no-work consulting jobs to political insiders. To extricate ourselves from Veolia, we had to pay a penalty of $29 million. That's not counting the deliberate over-billing to which ratepayers had been subject during Veolia's management of the water company. Ryan Vaughn and Jackie Nytes steered the deal through the council to approve the later sale to Citizen's Energy. Vaughn's law firm represented Veolia in negotiating the $29 million break-up fee, a fact never disclosed during council deliberations. Nytes winds up with a paid board position on Citizen's Energy and the six-figure CEO job at the library where she previously served as CFO and mismanaged funds, leading to skyrocketing property tax bills to support the library. And then the media touts these people as great civic leaders when they are robbing us blind at every turn.
ReplyDeleteIf, as you admit, the water company was a billion dollars in debt, and as is obvious, the water infrastructure hasn't been properly maintained under previous owners, why would it shock you that there would be rate increases and why are you acting like Citizens is doing something irresponsible by asking for one?
ReplyDeleteSeems like they are the first responsible owners in our lifetime.
Citizen's Energy has created a bunch of high-paid, make-work jobs for a bunch of executives who do little work for the large salaries they are earning. Their board members were supposed to be citizen volunteers. Now they're paid large fees to serve on the board, and the crony consulting agreements continue. They're not operating it responsibly. They've been allowed to swallow up other water companies in the suburban areas and now operates no differently than the for-profit monopoly utilities.
ReplyDeleteHow about if we charge a tariff to the outside communities who receive water from Indianapolis' water utility instead of raising the rates of those in Indianapolis?
ReplyDeleteHi Gary, this is Mike Strohl, Senior Vice President at Citizens Energy Group. I would be more than happy to get together with you and discuss the rationale for the rate case and the current financial realities of the water utility. Give me a call at 924-3311 and we can schedule a time. I look forward to it.
ReplyDeleteI will do that, Mike.
ReplyDelete