Community Meeting Follow Up 8/15/2025

8/15/25

BV Water Co Members and Customers,

Thanks to the many people who attended the community meeting on Wednesday night.  We really appreciate the turn-out and all the great questions and discussion. 

As promised, we have posted the presentation slides and notes from the meeting on the website. We did our best to capture the key discussion points in the notes, however, if there is anything that you notice was missed from the notes, please let me know. 

Also – if you were present but did not sign up on the sign-in sheet and would like the notes to reflect that you were at the meeting, please let me know and I will add your name.

I would also like to provide an update on what surfaced as the main concern regarding membership at the meeting – namely: whether members would be potentially subject to any types of assessments that non-member customers would not.  We all agreed at the meeting that we would not want this to be the case.  In response we have reached out to our attorney to look at amending the bylaws to this effect, as was suggested at the meeting.  The idea we put forth for the amendment is that it should be a general statement ensuring that members would not be subject to any financial obligations, whether assessments, rates or anything else that would not also equally apply to non-member customers. 

Once we have the opinion and draft language from our attorney on this topic we will share it out with the community for feedback prior to finalizing it to make sure that it addresses the concerns raised at the meeting.  If you have any additional comments on this topic in the meantime, please feel free to reach out to me. 

As discussed at the meeting, we are aiming for 100% member sign-up, which we have been advised will enable us to exit PUC jurisdiction and be self-governed with respect to rates – the upside of which is the significant cost savings in reduced legal fees for the hearings and the ability to increase rates more gradually to keep up with inflation.   That being said, we do plan to file for the transfer of ownership with the PUC in September either way.  Link to the member sign up here.

For anyone who could not make the meeting or for anyone who has additional questions, comments, or concerns please note that I, along with Leah Scott, the residential board representative, will be available for an informal Q&A at the James Moore Tavern at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, September 3. 

Additionally, if you would like to reach out to me via e-mail, please do so anytime at manager@bvcommunitywater.com. 

Thank you,

Lindsay