Several Ocala residents submitted letters to share their thoughts and concerns regarding the cost of water.
“To my surprise, Ocala’s water is liquid gold. I have lived in the state of Florida all my life and recently moved to Ocala from South Florida. In all my years, I have never seen anything like this. It is abusive and out of control. The most I have ever paid is $120 on average. Now my water bill is $400. They are hitting us with a rate of $5.61 per 1,000 gallons when you go over 20,000 gallons in usage. Unacceptable,” says Ocala resident Anais Villa.
“I have written about this before and feel that it is extremely important to keep bringing this to the forefront of conversation and action. With all of the development happening in Ocala, the water company will be servicing thousands (yes, thousands) of new families, which will have a major impact on demand and will also impact the amount of money we pay for water. After doing some research, Ocala has some of the highest cost for water usage in the nation. Ocala is the only city in the nation that has an abundant supply of water and rainfall per year and charges what they do for water. No other place even comes close. We need to have this investigated as our water company should be a nonprofit company at the very best, or a for-profit company at the very worst whose pricing is heavily regulated. Many of us are seniors living on retirement incomes who moved to Ocala for many reasons only to find that our monthly living expenses have increased beyond anyone’s budgeting since the price of water has increased beyond what is remotely affordable. We need help. The county commissioners need to look into this and take whatever action they can within their authority to help bring down the cost of water. With inflation at its highest and gas prices that are through the roof, the last thing we should have to be concerned about is not being able to afford the cost of water,” says Joseph Alberti, Ocala resident.
Would you like to share your thoughts with us? Share them in a comment or by writing a Letter to the Editor.