February 4, 2010
I would very much like your vote to actively serve on the Board during the next three years when both full-time residents and vacation homeowners will experience dramatic changes affecting our pocketbooks and impacting our ability to live and enjoy our unique mountain community.
My husband and I have been dues paying members of BVRI since 1992 with the purchase of our cabin on Schimke Road. This past year, working successfully with Barbara Goodrich and engaging my husband John, I experienced the satisfaction of seeing positive changes facing the Bear Valley Water District (Sewer). We spearheaded the Proposition 218 movement to defeat the proposed 50 % rate increase that resulted in stopping the $4,000,000 unnecessary tertiary treatment plant. We then constructively helped elect Phill Coffman to the BVWD Board. I’ve immensely enjoyed working with Bear Valley people, many of whom I had never met before, who took the time and made great efforts to collect the 200+ signatures between the time of the Music Festival and Labor Day weekend. This group was eager to solve a very real problem facing both vacation owner and resident alike. To be successful I read, analyzed and evaluated voluminous materials regarding the past 10 years of BVWD operations and its regulatory bodies. Many questions are still unanswered, but now we have a competent General Manager to move us forward. I would like to bring the hundreds of hours of this experience to the BVRI board to enable it to be knowledgably proactive in the future.
At the same time the sewer problem arose this past summer, Bear Valley was coincidentally hit with a proposed rate increase from the Lake Alpine Water Company (Water). Again, hours were spent to learn the process of the CPUC regulatory agency, read the laws under which it operated and gather data. I determined homeowners were paying almost 80% of the fixed costs and raised this issue at the public meeting. I called 30 other Class D private water companies to learn their rates and shared the information with the CPUC, including discussions with the head of the Water Division. I was extremely disappointed no one from BVRI openly represented us at the public hearing and even more so to learn BVRI merely sent a letter protesting the rate increase solely on behalf of the business owners. Since buying our home in 1992 we have seen our water bill rise to over $1000/year regardless of whether we use a drop of water or a thousand gallons of water. As these rates continue to increase, our homes’ resale values will be adversely impacted and the cost of living for the full-time residents will become prohibitive. At the last BVRI Board meeting this past January, a letter was sent again only on behalf of the business owners to Lake Alpine Water Company to not increase the business water rates with no mention of residential users.
Complacency and cordiality have been the mantra of our current Board. This is fine when no substantive issues face our community. But if BVRI is to represent our community, we need active Board members not only willing to give their time but who understand, analyze, question and respond timely to the issues facing us as homeowners. With my 30 years experience as a trial lawyer, I am eager to serve our community.
More importantly, I look forward to engage greater numbers of our very small community to actively participate in its future and experience the immense satisfaction of public service.
Please make me a write-in on your ballot as well as John Dralla and do vote for Barbara Goodrich for change Bear Valley can believe in.
Thank you.
Gloria Dralla