Publicly-Owned Utilities and the Recession

I have already commented on the local water utility and their interesting ideas as to what constitutes "investing in the community". However, today I discovered they decided to kick it up a notch.

The Scranton Times-Tribune reports today that, as the third-costliest water utility in the state of PA, they are petitioning the PUC for a rate hike. Of almost 14%. Which would bring us up to second-costliest!

They suggest that it's because they've invested *so* much money into the local infrastructure. But there's also a completely separate charge on the bill for "Distribution Systems Improvement". And rates got hiked 9% in 2007.

I'll have more on this later, but I mainly just wanted to get the links bookmarked for handy reference.

Write the PUC and your state representatives, dammit.