Hello everyone,
I live in a condominium with submeter. Our condo water & sewage usage gets billed every 3 months. Every quarter my water bill has increased even though I have taken all necessary steps to reduce usage based on previous quarter bills. My average quarterly water & sewage bill for 2018 was $300.
I live alone in the condo, no patio or lawn water. Condo Association pays water bill separately for gardening and other purposes. Is this normal ? One individual living in a condo is billed $300 every quarter. The water bill is difficult to understand. The city is useless in answering my concerns. Please, help.

The answer is really simple. You are being robbed blind by the City. The water bill from my rental property condo in Wakefield for the last quarter was $68.22. My kid's place in Haverhill was $34.18, and she has three bathrooms. This is a long term issue in Melrose. No snarkiness meant, but educate yourself about it. You will be appalled.

The new proposed water rates 🤬

What do you hate about them? There is literally 0% change across the board to the rates.

"0% change" isn't a good thing. Your post belies the fraud of Melrose City government.
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Melrose water rates need to go down significantly. They're at the highest levels of all the MWRA. It's time they give back to ratepayers all of our money they stole the last few years and are just sitting on. Give it back by reducing the rates next year. A 20% reduction would be a good start.

Sure. That'll happen.

Time to readjust your expectations. Remember just a few days ago when every other post on this board was bemoaning the big "conspiracy" of how the override was passed just before a HUGE water rate increase was set to be announced. Now that hasn't happened. In fact, water rates have not changed AT ALL, and somehow this is a loss because they didn't cut rates by 20 percent. What. A. Joke.

If you never let anyone win in your eyes, then no one will ever try to see things your way and work to help. Even if Monica won mayor there wouldn't be a drop in the water rate. Time for this board to get real.

Water rates should be be set to raise the amount of revenue needed to provide the water - no more. The water account runs a huge profit year after year because the Melrose rates are higher than than most towns and far higher than necessary. The city just keeps the extra money from the prior years and continues to charge exorbitant amounts. I agree it should give back the extra money from the last few years. Lowering charges for next year is a good way to do it.

I don't know which is the most disturbing - the fact that they do it at all, and unapologetically, or the fact that sheeple continue to allow them to get away with it.

And there we have it... A unironic use of "sheeple". Who had that on their Melrose Messages bingo card?

Got the water bill in the mail. It's nearly $500. That's about what they said the average override will cost, but this is for only one quarter of the year. This isn't nickels and dimes for us. Way more than that. I have two boys, myself and my husband, and my elderly mother living with us. After taxes, water bills and prescriptions, there isn't anything left. Water doesn't cost this much in other towns. Someone better get to the bottom of this.