Soaking property owners

For too long our property values have been dropping at a rate of one-half percent per month, or 6 percent per year. The city’s new water rate restructuring plan may accelerate that fall in property values. The new consumption rates may force many of our neighborhood yards and gardens to deteriorate into urban deserts and wastelands that will share the landscape with our forsaken streets.

As property values fall, so does the revenue that comes from property taxes. This fall in revenue will add to the degradation of city services and contribute more to a larger deficit in the city budget.

Many of our neighbors who are already on the financial edge could find themselves upside down with the bank and more willing to walk away. Future foreclosures and distress sales could drive market values even further downward. The new rates rob the poor and needy and take away potential income from local business.

Thus the possible unintended consequences of a water shortage that does not currently exist.

Richard A. Magney

Spokane