By Sara Ruf | Maricopa Monitor
The latest chapter in Maricopa’s ongoing battle with Global Water Resources is finally finished.
For a few moments, its fate hung in the balance, but when the five-member Arizona Corporation Commission stamped its unanimous approval on a settlement
between the city of Maricopa and Global’s utilities last week, perhaps no one breathed a bigger sigh of relief than Maricopa Mayor Christian Price.
He sat in the front row, eager to make sure the agreement that took months to pull together passed with flying colors.
“It’s nice to be over and done with it,” Price said. “It’d be great if we could win it all, but that’s not how the real world works.”
Santa Cruz Water Co. and sewer provider Palo Verde Util- ity Co. are subsidiaries of private utility company Global Water. It was the second time in fewer than four years Global petitioned the commission to charge more for water and sewer service, affecting most Maricopa residents, who were already angry about high rates.
Originally, Global requested a rate hike from $33.16 to $50 a month — a 50 percent jump — and a sewer rate increase of more than 25 percent.
Last spring, residents piled into meeting rooms to express their dismay with the hikes. The effects were immediate. Global officials agreed to negotiate and the city hammered out an agreement in the past seven months with help from the majority of Maricopa’s homeowner associations. The goal was to avoid a drawn-out legal fight with Global that could have cost the city thousands of dollars, with no guarantee prices wouldn’t sky- rocket.
Thanks to the settlement, water customers will now see a 10.4 percent jump in water bills during an eight-year phase-in. Sewer customers will see a 10.5 percent increase, down from the original 25 percent hike Global requested in 2012.
