Yowee! Lakeport residents, have you looked at the city’s proposed water and sewer rate increases?

They total an eye-popping 100-percent increase over the next five years with no ending date.

It is based upon some out-of-town “expert” who doesn’t understand our cost of living, income or our lifestyles.

I look up and down the street at my place and half of the homes already have dead lawns. The city council needs to think of the side effects of this proposal and not just rubber stamp it without considering what it will do to the city.

The last “bright idea” the city approved, over a room full of protesting citizens, was the mandatory garbage that has rattled us out of bed, brought us torn up streets littered with garbage cans that lay there for days, and numerous rate hikes.

This proposal will burden us all at a time when there has been years with little or no increased in Social Security or paychecks. We already have three half empty shopping centers and numerous empty houses and shops.

This new “tax” will greatly burden all of us. If you have already let your lawn die, I guess now you are suppose to quit bathing and washing your clothes!

Tell the city council no! File a written protest by Sept. 18 and have them reconsider and scale this down so it doesn’t break us and turn the city brown.

Bob Bridges lives in Lakeport, Calif.