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City of Anderson has collected close to 2.75 Million
dollars
of tax revenues from over 5000 Anderson County Customers (September
1, 2004- June 30, 2006). These Anderson County Customers
have
received no services for these
dollars. This immoral practice needs to be stopped. |
Street Sign Anderson County June 2006 |
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Each month the City of Anderson, South Carolina's
water utility Electric City Utilities (ECU) sends some of it's
customers a reminder
of the Water Scam the City and ECU is running.
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The reminder is called a utility
bill and ECU charges some of their customers doubled water
rates. The victims
of this
scam
are
charged higher
rates due to the fact that they live in Anderson County outside
the City Limits. The added revenue that ECU collects for the
City of Anderson has been used in the past two years to offset
over $1,000,000.00 in tax revenue. The water scam makes
almost 5000 Anderson County Residents 'City Taxpayers' without
the right to vote or the benefit of the
services that City Residents receive. |
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It gets better (or worse depending on
your point of view) The State of South Carolina has very stringent
annexation
laws, designed to protect residents from being gobbled up by aggressive
city expansion. |
| ECU requires all new customers in
Anderson County (even if the water service is already hooked
up) to sign an agreement that in
part requires the owner and subsequent owners of the property to
sign a petition to allow annexation. If the owner or subsequent
owner refuses to sign the petition the agreement (which becomes
a part of the properties title) gives the City's Lawyer "power
of attorney", allowing him to sign these petitions instead
of the property owner. The agreement also requires the property
owner to automatically become annexed into the City if
any part of the City touches their property. The agreement completely
bypasses the State's Annexation Laws. |
| According to real estate statistics approximately
50 percent of all households 'turn over' each three to four years.
After that time your neighborhood can be annexed into the City
of Anderson and at that time there will be nothing you can do about
it. |
| (Download a copy of the ECU Utility Agreement/ Restrictive
Covenants- Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader) |
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Is this scam
Legal? Apparently so. Is this scam right. Definitely not. The
Mayor and City Council in Anderson have decided that they can
play loose and lively with public utilities, a monopoly and raise
revenue as it suits them. |
The purpose of this site is to organize
victims, to educate Citizens and ultimately, put an end to this
Water Scam.
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-Our
Goals-
- We call for the Mayor and City Council of Anderson,
South Carolina to end this immoral practice. Water is not
a luxury item. The
water
rates
should be the same for any customer, not based on
where you live or who you can (or can't) vote for.
- We want the Mayor and City Council
to void all of the water contracts that require citizens
to
become
annexed
into
the City should the City become contiguous with their property.
- We demand that the Mayor and
City Council remove all of the Restrictive Covenants requiring
you to sign away
your power of attorney to the City of Anderson in all annexation
petitions in future elections created under the water contracts.
- We require the Mayor and City Council refund the
doubled rates collected from their Anderson County Resident
Customers AND to pay applicable interest to all of the County
Residents affected by the scam.
- We want all utilities operated by the City of
Anderson and other municipalities in South Carolina to
be placed
under
the supervision of the Public Services
Commission or other
independent regulatory authority, to undermine the temptation
to commit utility scams on citizens in the future.
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| If you are a victim of this scam we ask that you
spend a few minutes letting us know who you are and if you will
be able to assist us with our mission to end this Water Scam. |
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