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Water Bill Investigation: Plan to fix things at Water Department for good

San Diego City Councilman Chris Cate on Tuesday announced he has reopened the high water bills saga to look into how to prevent water meter misreads and accidental high bills in the future.

SAN DIEGO (NEWS 8) - San Diego City Councilman Chris Cate on Tuesday announced he has reopened the high water bills saga to look into how to prevent water meter misreads and accidental high bills in the future.

Cate proposed a long list of items to the Public Utilities Department, but despite the flood of calls to his office about sky high water bill having gone down, Cate said, "we want to make sure that we are doing it right."

Many San Diegans had exorbitant bills, some had misread meters or unread meters. Now Cate wants to rebuild the public's trust in the city.

"Customers are now trusting the city again after the fiasco we had with our water bills," he said.

Councilman Cate's compiled recommendations for the city's water company include:

  • • Require the Public Utilities Department to prepare a Five-Year Financial Outlook.
  • • Make PUD to give written notice to customers whenever meters are estimated and make every effort to read all meters
  • • Improve overall customer service

"Our hope is that we get a response back from the department from the reforms and see what they think. From there, if council action is necessary, we will take it to the city's environmental committee," he said.

Currently, there are two audits of the Public Utilities Department taking place. One is being conducted the department itself, and another by an independent auditor.

Both are expected to be completed by this summer.

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