Shame on you Karla Brown!

Is your wasting the water have anything to do with your strong opposition against development?

You attempted to eliminate senior citizens discount, did that have anything to do with you wasting water?

Why are you wasting the water? Maybe you have a water leakage?

Glad to see NIMBY Karla Brown got a fine. Good work.

She did not have a leak. They waive the fine for a first time leak that the homeowner repairs. Her fine was not waived, she just wasted the water. Shameful.

Because the water department refuses to join the 21th century, residents like Karla Brown can have a small issue with their water system that leads to using more than their allotment of water, causing the penalty to kick in. The fine that Karla paid really is not that big and could have been caused by one broken irrigation pipe. As an example, our neighborhood had a water main break. When the water department shut off the water, we were manually watering the lawn and laid down the nozzle (with shut off trigger) when the water stopped flowing. The nozzle was put right over a French drain. It was one hour after the water was turned backed that we discovered the shut off trigger did not shut off the water flow. 500 gallons of water went right down the gutter. If the water department had their act together they would allow citizens to build up a reserve of saved water that could be used to cover instances like what happened to Karla. Maybe Karla and the rest of the city council can start kicking a few butts around to make this happen. Last year I saved over 90,000 gallons of water. This is water saved after the 25% reduction. It sure would be nice to have this water in a savings account in case we had a line break in our plumbing.

Hi Miss Karla...maybe you have special privileges? Your behavior is SHAMEFUL.

DON'T VOTE FOR KARLA BROWN IF SHE COMES UP FOR RE-ELECTION.

HER BEHAVIOR IS ABUSIVE.

@bill -- she did not have "a small issue with their water system that leads to using more than their allotment of water"

The fine is waived for a bona fide leak, or as you say "a small issue". She simply wasted this water and deserved the fine. As do all of the others who waste water.

@Maichael Austin: "You (Karla Brown) attempted to eliminate senior citizens discount, did that have anything to do with you wasting water?"

I thought that you yourself said awhile ago that she was in favor of reducing the senior citizens discount from 20% to 15%. Is that what you're referring to? That's not "eliminating" the discount.

Water saver,

They do not wave the fine for a first time problem. I was not even in the state for a month last year. One of my valves had a continuous leak and I noticed a huge area in front where the ground was WET. I took pics and fixed the leak. Sent the pics to the "czar" and asked him to come out and look. He said he did not want to. My bill including fines was $593.00. He said I could protest and I did and he was the one who decided the fee would stand.

Water saver - I concur with Jerry. It does not take that much over usage of water to rack up the penalty amount that Karla had to pay per Jerry's remarks. And the water department doesn't care if the overage was caused by a leak or accident. Like Jerry I also wish a good retirement for our former water czar, just don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Speaking of moving into the 21st century, how about being able to track your usage in real time or at least on a daily basis. Then everyone would be able to tell if you have a leak without having to wait for a bill that comes over two months!

@Enrique

Having real time or daily water use info available to consumers is a great idea. I think that the water utility already has wireless water meters installed everywhere, right? At least, I think that that's what that new water meter that I have is the last time I pulled up the water meter cover outside our house. If PG&E can allow us to access our daily or - in the case of electricity - even our hourly utility use, then it should be possible to get daily information on our water usage. Perhaps it would even be possible to send an alert to our smart phones while we are on vacation if the water usage spikes as a result of a major leak.

Unfortunately, the current Pleasanton on-line water utility billing system is pretty primitive compared to the PG&E website, so the water company was a lot of work to do in order to provide the same level of utility usage information that PG&E does.

Damian,

Go to your water meter today and write down the number. Go tomorrow and write down the number and subtract the two and that's your usage. Don't be such a potato.

Water usage in our household has dropped by 75% compared to the previous year since we stopped watering our lawn and flush our toilets with recycled water (water captured during our showers and hand washing). It's really not that hard to save water. Stop watering your lawn entirely would be a great start. Brown is the new green!

The water czar will only waive your fine if you request it, and then the odds are still against you. I admire Carla for not using her position to get the fee waived (don't these guys work for the council?). In her position she could have asked for a favor but she didn't. I also heard it was her first penalty in 2 years, so I don't think that is so bad.

To me that shows a higher level of ethics. She got her hand slapped, she paid the penalty, now move on.

If you have a bonafide repair bill for leaks and show you immediately worked to get the leaks fixed your fine will be waived. At least that was my experience with the water department.

As a Pleasanton sitting council member, Karla should be leading as an example in conserving water, as directed by the Governing agencies declaration "we are in a drought, mandatory water restrictions is the law".

It is appalling, Karla has elected to ignore the drought, to make an effort, to conserve water along with the rest of us in this community.

Shame on you Karla Brown.

????

That wasn't my experience at all. I fixed immediately, took pics and could not even get the czar interested in coming out. Not a good experience .