BH-27 Correspondence – Andreana Langston
From: Adreana Langston <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2023 9:59 AM
To: CityClerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Public Comment Regarding Agenda Item 27 for September 5, 2023 City Council Meeting
-EXTERNAL-
Hello Clerk Garza,
EComment only allows 1K characters and what I have to say about agenda item 27 on the September 5, 2023 agenda is longer than that. Would you kindly forward this email to all City Council Members other than M. Zendejas who I already contacted. Thank you.
I am not supporting a water bill increase
unless it is accompanied by a crack down
on property owners who cause their tenants
to waste water for which the tenants are
paying!
https://longbeach.granicusideas.com/meetings/4092-city- council/agenda_items/64ed3d0bf2b670b1bc020045-27-10-23-1006-recommendation-to- declare-ordinance
27. 10 23-1006 Recommendation to declare ordinance approving Resolution No. UT-1482 establishing the rates and charges for Water, Sewer, and Gas services to all customers, as adopted by the Board of Utilities Commissioners on June 26, 2023, as an Emergency Ordinance, read, and adopted as read and laid over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for final reading. (A-10)
I am calling on the City Council to reject approval of the ordinance for Resolution No. UT-1482.
My call for rejection is based on two things. The first thing is the ordinance is biased against renters who don’t have control over water waste. Below is a copy of the public statement I gave at the August 29, 2023 Water Commissioners meeting.
https://bit.ly/WaterMeetingStatementAug29th2023
Good Evening Water Commissioners,
My name is Adreana Langston and I dwell in the 126 unit Elevate Long Beach apartment complex in 90802. With Climate Catastrophe beginning to manifest worldwide I understand the need for municipal infrastructure to be updated to capture more water from more frequent once-every-100-year storms and to reserve more water for more
frequent once-every-hundred-year droughts. I understand that these updates need to be funded. My protest is not against the 9% increase per se. My protest is against the fact that the 9% increase is not being accompanied by efforts to force property owners to stop wasting water.
I used the [email protected] email address to send my protest letter where I detailed and documented my own efforts to solicit every single form of government and/or regulatory agency I could to bring pressure to bear on the owners of Elevate Long Beach apartments to address an issue that is causing all 126 units to waste water every single day due to inconsistent hot water. In the letter I sent you I linked to videos of me standing by faucets in my unit, pointing a laser thermometer at the water coming out of that tap when the faucet was turned all the way to hot and waiting sometimes over 5 minutes for the water to get to over 100 degrees, never reaching 120. Each leasee gets a bill separate from the rent that includes a prorated charge for all the water used by the building divided by 126 units. So I am paying for the gallons of water that go down the sink while I wait for the water to get hot enough to kill germs when I wash my hands.
My own city councilwoman is a resident of my building and she and her office met with residents to map out a strategy for how to get the issue addressed as she faces the same hot water problems in her own unit.
Her office advised me to contact code enforcement.
I and two other tenants filed a complaint with code enforcement.
Inspectors were sent to my unit but could not write a violation because they did not personally witness the problem on the date/time that they came.
Supervisor Manuel Rivas told me that unless it happened right when the inspector was there, there was nothing Code Enforcement could do.
I communicated with head of the Water Department Chris Garner asking if there was a process was for filing a water waste complaint against Elevate based on the gallons upon gallons of water being wasted down the drain as tenants wait for the water to get hot. He said that he hoped in the future municipalities would give water departments the regulatory power to sanction multi dwelling units that are wasting water in the way Elevate is, but for now that was not the case.
I wrote to the actual company that owns, but does not manage the building. I got a letter back from the law office that represents the company telling me that the problem was fixed. The videos to which I link in my email to you show that is not true.
If I were a property owner rather than a renter I could:
• Install an electricity water zapper right under each sink that would instantly heat the water before it comes out of the tap.
o As a renter I can make no such modification.
• Rip up all the landscaping and replace it with a rock garden to offset the water wasted from the faucet.
o As a renter I have no authority over landscaping at the building. • Replace the dishwasher and washing machine with water efficient models. o As a renter I have no say so over the appliances used in my building.
Water Commissioners, I hope from my protest letter you can understand how any increase in the water bill will fall more heavily on renters since they have way less control over water waste. That’s why I can not support this 9% increase until it is accompanied by a written-into-policy commitment by the Water Department to crack down on landlords who keep their properties in such a way that it forces their tenants to waste water for which the tenants are paying.
The second reason I am calling on the City Council Members to reject Resolution No. UT-1482 is the process. I was really insulted last night at the Water Commissioner’s meeting when Commissioner Shannon basically chastised the people at the meeting for not having shown up at the earlier meetings when the ordinance was being debated. You can hear his chastisement for yourself at this Youtube link which is cued up to the very part where he speaks - https://bit.ly/ShannonAug29th2023
The thing is, the way California Proposition 218 is written, only ratepayers get the notice. Well the ratepayer in my dwelling is not me or any other tenant. It is the property owner, a company not even located in Long Beach. And I assure you they are not sending City of Long Beach notices about public meetings on to the tenants, even though we are the ones who pay the water bill.
I came up to Commissioner Shannon after the meeting and told him that I never got any of those previous notices because I am a renter. You know what he told me. He told me that yes, that has been a problem the Commission has known about for years and at some point the problem will hopefully be addressed. What kind of answer is that? If the Water Commission and City Council know that A) Tenants outnumber landlords in Long Beach and B) Tenants are often the ones paying the water bill then the City Council and the Water Commission should have ALREADY come up with a process to incorporate ALL REGISTERED VOTERS, not just ratepayers and/or property owners in Long Beach when it comes to Proposition 218 mandated notices about meetings. So I want the City Council to reject this ordinance because it is being put forth without the full polity of the Long Beach electorate having been given the opportunity to weigh in on the ordinance when it was being developed.
Adreana Langston