Earlier this week city staff recommended changes to the way water usage rates are charged. They noted that London’s current residential rates are higher than the provincial average, while rates for industrial, commercial and institutional users are considerably lower.

In order to redress this imbalance, they propose cutting rates for homeowners and increasing the levies on other users. Estimates are the average London residential bill would decrease by about $3.35 per month, while some of the larger users (Labatt’s, for example) would see their bill increase by as much as half a million dollars a year.

I understand the attractiveness of the “give some money back to the hard-pressed taxpayers” argument – the Voice strongly supports a comprehensive audit and cost-cutting program at city hall – but as a taxpayer I have to recognize that my cost of living in the city is already affected by the health of its industrial, commercial and institutional sectors. The more taxes they pay (and the more of them who are here paying taxes), the less the city has to shake out of my wallet.

I don’t know if a more balanced rate system would hurt existing businesses enough to make them consider leaving, as some have argued.

But I do know this, very clearly: the fact that London’s water rates are among the lowest in the province for non-residential users has to be a plus for any business considering locating here.

I know this, too: in today’s struggling economy we need all the new businesses (and the taxes they generate) we can manage to attract to our city. We spend a couple of million a year on the LEDC in an effort to bring new business here, so why would we reduce our civic attractiveness for the sake of $3.35 a month per household? That isn’t exactly a recipe for success in bringing desperately-needed new jobs to London.

It will be easy for opportunistic politicians and others to cry “justice for the homeowner!” and “make the rich (corporations) pay!” but in the end it is the homeowner who suffers every time we lose another plant or industry to some other city where they have worked harder to make themselves attractive to new business.

There are lots of things about the political status quo in this city that I would like to see changed, but the water rate structure isn’t one of them. Our rates are among the lowest in the province? Great! That’s a competitive advantage we can use.

And I will gladly make a monthly $3.35 “investment” in London’s future in order to improve the chances of keeping our city from stagnating economically.