The Chattanooga Association of Realtors announced that their 1,900 members will be joining Fight the Hike (www.FighttheHike.org), a coalition of citizens and businesses "vowing to fight the 20.58 percent water rate hike proposed by Tennessee-American Water Company."
CAR officials said, "Tennessee-American’s latest double-digit rate increase request came just one year after the foreign-owned utility was granted a 12.3 percent increase by the Tennessee Regulatory Authority (TRA). If the new rate increase is approved, it will mean that Tennessee-American has increased their rates 45 percent since August 2003."
Pam Duffy, CAR president, said, “While realtors in the area are spreading the word about Chattanooga’s ideal housing market, we have been challenged by national headlines that don’t reflect the true state of the market here; now a new challenge lies before us.
“For too many, the cost of living is already high enough – our water rates cannot keep rising. We don’t want to detract from all the positives that contribute to our quality of life and make this community such a great place to call home.”
The group cited several reasons for joining Fight the Hike, saying that the Chattanooga area has the most expensive water rates out of Tennessee’s six largest cities and referring to the state’s announcement that Tennessee-American’s customers are currently overcharged by $1.6 million.
Randy Baker, chairman of the Fight the Hike campaign, said, “On behalf of the Fight the Hike coalition, I want to express our appreciation to this large and diverse group of realtors for their support of this campaign.
“We encourage them as well as all Tennessee-American customers to learn more about Tennessee-American’s rate increase history on our website to attend the public comment sessions on Aug. 18 and 19 at the Hamilton County Courthouse; and to contact TRA and elected officials to voice their opposition to the rate increase proposal. The excessive rate increases on water we own must stop.”
Ms. Duffy said, “We are taking a stand against the pattern of burdensome and unexplained Tennessee-American water rate increases. Homebuyers and re-locators looking at the Chattanooga area see that our home prices are realistic, so we do not want to dismantle their confidence in our market by having overpriced water service.”
There will be two public input sessions regarding ennessee-American’s proposed rate increase: Aug. 18, 6:30-8:30 p.m. and Aug. 19, 8:30-9:30 a.m. The Tennessee Regulatory Authority will hold both sessions at the Hamilton County Courthouse.