Group launches robo-call campaign against water rate increase

The state chapter of a national conservative political advocacy group is taking aim at the Southern Nevada Water Authority and its plans to raise rates.

Americans for Prosperity launched a campaign against the proposed rate hike last week with a robo-call that went out to about 1,000 local water customers.

The automated call attacked the timing and scale of the increase and criticized the regional water wholesaler for frivolous spending. At the end of the message, customers were given the option of being connected to their representative on the authority board with the touch of a button.

Board member and Henderson City Councilman Sam Bateman said he got about 100 of the forwarded calls in quick succession over two nights last week.

"My phone just started getting blown up with voicemails. They were coming in every 10 seconds, one after another after another," he said. "It basically shut my phone down."

Water authority General Manager Pat Mulroy said this is the first time her agency has been targeted by a robo-call campaign like this.

"This one stupefies me," she said. "I don’t understand what the endgame is. OK, so you quash the rate increase. What have you accomplished? If the authority defaults, what have you accomplished?"

Authority board members will vote next week on one of three options for raising rates, each designed to generate almost $260 million in additional revenue.

Most residents will see their monthly bills increase by between $5 and $10, depending on which option is selected.

Officials insist they need the money to fund "critical water infrastructure" and pay down the debt associated with major construction projects.

Such work used to be paid for with connection charges from new homes and businesses, but that stream of money all but dried up when the economy tanked and the housing market collapsed.

Adam Stryker is state director for Americans for Prosperity, a group that set up shop in Nevada two years ago to promote limited government and lower taxes.

Nationally, the nonprofit organization boasts 1.6 million members and has ties to the tea party movement and billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.

Stryker said his organization was spurred to action by local residents and business owners who are worried about the rate hike.

"People felt like this was being swept under the rug."

Stryker said the proposed hike will raise monthly water bills by "a minimum of 27 percent" to fund an agency that has increased its marketing budget alone by 45 percent over the past year.

"That’s nonsense. It’s gone down," Mulroy said of the marketing claim. "I don’t know where the heck he got his information."

The water authority will accept public input on the proposed rate hike through its website, www.snwa.com, until 6 p.m. today . The website also has a calculator so customers can figure out how the various proposals might affect their bills.

Authority board members are expected to choose one of the three options when they meet at 9 a.m. Feb. 29 on the seventh floor of the Molasky Corporate Center, 100 City Parkway in downtown Las Vegas.

The higher rates could show up on local water bills starting in May and remain in effect for the next three years.

Mulroy has said the bulk of the money is needed to pay down debt associated with the "third straw," a roughly $700 million intake pipe now under construction at Lake Mead.

The valley draws roughly 90 percent of its water supply from the lake.

The new intake will allow the flow of water to continue even if the reservoir shrinks to the level of the two existing straws.

The massive tunneling project is more than a year behind schedule, and most of the contingency funds built into its budget have been spent.

Mulroy said she would love to know who may have paid for the robo-calls behind the scenes.

But Stryker insists that no one is secretly pulling the strings of his organization or its roughly 30,000 members.

"Sorry I can’t make your story better," he said with a chuckle. "Nobody put us up to this. This is just an issue we decided to highlight."

And it could be only the beginning.

Stryker said Americans for Prosperity would consider future campaigns against utilities or government agencies that seek to pile on a community already struggling to keep its head above water.

"Any hindrance to getting business back on track is something we’re going to pay attention to," he said.

For his part, Bateman said he didn’t need to have his phone flooded to know that people don’t like to have their water rates raised, especially during hard times.

"I understand they have the right to do what their doing," he said of Stryker and company. "I just don’t think these concocted robo-calls are very effective."

Unless, perhaps, you’re a candidate for Henderson City Council.

Asked whether this experience has caused him to rethink the use of auto-dialers in political campaigns, Bateman laughed and said, "Not necessarily."

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.