Chattanooga’s City Council members tonight voted unanimously to authorize the city to intervene legally in the Tennessee-American Water Company’s attempt to raise water rates more than 20 percent.

“If it’s something that you oppose, then you need to be willing to get in the fray and say ‘you know, we really do not support this,’” Council Chairman Linda Bennett said after the meeting. “It’s not something that we have a lot of control over so … that’s one of the things that we can do.”

The council’s vote came five days after the Hamilton County Commission approved a measure opposing the water company’s proposal to the Tennessee Regulatory Authority.

The city’s resolution calls the 20.58 percent rate increase request “exorbitant” and asserts that it negatively would impact users on the heels of a 12.3 percent rate jump approved by the state regulatory authority last May.

“Such back-to-back increases will adversely effect all of the businesses and citizens of this community and may make this community less competitive with respect to economic development opportunities,” the city resolution states.

Mike McMahan, with the city attorney’s office, said intervention is “like a trial” in which opponents of the rate hike would argue against the water company’s reasons for the increase. A Tennessee-American official has said the company needs new revenue for pay for infrastructure improvements, operating and maintenance expenses and other costs.

For complete details, see tomorrow’s Chattanooga Times Free Press.

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