Letters to the Editor: Lake Lease

Editor, The Friday Flyer:

Re: Canyon Lake Board of Directors vs Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District – The statement of CLBOD that the maintenance of the lake is stated as $20,000-plus. Missing is the fact that the EVMWD runs a complex business with an income of $75 million and they perform numerous tasks to provide drinking water and to dispose of the effluent from the homes and businesses under their municipal jurisdiction.

The cost of 1.45 million is 1.9 percent of the collected income. Like any business, they have to generate profits where they can to pay for the loss aspects of their business. Compare the Golf Course and Country Club loss of 1 million with the income generated by the POA of 15 million, a 6 percent loss to the POA and its members.

The EVMWD would charge its water customers more for the services they render if not for parts of its business making a good profit. The EVMWD could increase the lake expenses by placing some of their services this side of the dam.

My reading of their latest offer described in their “letter,” February 2016, is that they have made an offer that the lease payment will be controlled to rise over a 10-year period, repeat 10 years, with the Consumer Price Index, the current year’s payment of $1.45 million will rise to $1.77 million or 22 percent over this 10-year period, an average of 2.2 percent per year. This offer was presented at the EVMWD open board meeting May 14, 2015 and is available at canyonlakefacts.com.

Why is this offer not acceptable to the Canyon Lake Board? It destroys the 8 percent per year increase that the current lease demands. The cost of CLPOA going to court to date spent more this 2015 year on their legal fees than the whole 10-year payment offered.

George Middle