IPUC: Complaints go unheeded

I am writing in response to an article in the July 24 Press business section entitled, "Probe of Avista electric rate request begins."

I am writing not about the proposed Avista rate increase but my dismay and displeasure with the Idaho Public Utilities Commission and their arbitrary rate increase granted the owner of the Murray water works, which is a well system, and the owner was getting $26 a month until October 2010. Then the IPUC granted the Murray water system owner a raise to $51.50 a month, without a hearing on the subject of a rate hike which went into effect December 2010. The owner has promised improvements which the people of Murray will never see.

Murray residents who are on the water system sent letters as a group to IPUC in protest of the unfair and unwarranted rate increase. As a town we found out that the letters were never opened and were tossed in the garbage.

And when several residents on the Murray water system called to inquire why this raise was granted, we were told by a rude woman at IPUC that the raise was granted - just pay it.

To sum it up, the IPUC works for some of the public, but not all.

DONALD J. WILLIAMS

Murray