Property owners deserve to be heard

I would like to comment on the article by Joe Fries regarding the metering of the “domestic second service” in Summerland (Penticton Herald, Sept. 29).

As a property owner in the .5 acre catchment, I have been active in addressing this matter for 10 years. The decision that Kris Johnson refers to in 2011 or 2012 has no documentation that I can find and so it is believed to have been an in-house discussion.

I do, however, have documents that reflect the various attempts by the District of Summerland to address this issue. These attempts waffle between charging property owners for the installation of meters back to charging a flat fee for irrigation water several times.

It was implied at the council meeting of Aug. 24 that the owners of the properties in question, have been receiving “free” water that is being subsidized by the rest of Summerland and that it’s time to pay up. This is not the case as, like agricultural irrigation services, we paid a flat fee.

The remaining 240 property owners were not the ones making the decisions over the past 10 years. The decisions made by council and staff have now resulted in a proposed choice that will be cost-prohibitive for many households as is was in 2014 and 2019.

The people defending their requirements for the separate line never objected to paying a fair rate for the water they use for irrigation. They did, however, object to having to pay for the installation of the meter.

In 2014. the price was quoted at $1500 and now it is somewhere between $3,500 and $4,000. Some property owners thought that amount was too onerous in 2014 and elected to have their irrigation line unnecessarily cut off which seems to be the outcome desired by the District of Summerland by raising cost of the meters.

This issue is complex and the property owners deserve a chance to be heard.

Dawn Richards, Summerland