Dear Billy T and Somerville/Medford News Weekly Speakup Line,
Hi Billy,
It’s Max (Maninder).
We’ve known each other a long time, and I don’t usually send 10-page emails. I’m sending this one because what’s happening with Somerville’s water/sewer bills is not an isolated issue. It’s part of a larger structural problem where:
the City’s growth and land-deal ambitions,
its use of eminent domain and redevelopment tools,
its budget and enterprise-fund structure, and
its rate and billing decisions
end up being carried on the backs of ordinary residents — especially owner-occupants in single-family, two-family, and three-family homes.
You’ve already started covering the class action on fraudulent/inaccurate water bills. That’s one half of the story (bad meters and bad bills). This email lays out the other half:
What happens when the meter is “right,” the math is “right,” and the bill is still outrageous because the entire system is stacked against normal homeowners?
I’m going to give you:
My property & bill details (with full math)
How Somerville’s rate design works now vs. before FY26
The billing-cycle change and why it hides how bad the increase is
How state/local rules trap owner-occupants with single meters
How enterprise funds and outside money (MWRA, state, federal) really work
Major land-taking & redevelopment bets (with dollar amounts)
How those decisions interact with water/sewer rates and property-tax pressure
Why there are effectively two scandals:
broken meters / fraudulent billing; and
a “legal” system that’s still abusive
A road map of public records and court dockets you can pull if you want to dig deeper
Use whatever is useful. I’m fine being on the record with this.
1. My property and the bill that set this off
Property: Derby Street, Somerville
Type: Two-family owner-occupied house
Meters:
One standard 5/8″ water meter for the whole building (very typical for older two-families)
No separate tenant meters
That means:
The City sees one account.
Every drop used in either unit is billed to me, not my tenants.
If I want tenants to pay by usage, I would have to pay to re-plumb and add new meters, plus permitting and inspection costs — a big capital project in itself.
The bill
Bill date: November 26, 2025
Total due: $2,258.44
Line items:
Water – Residential: $815.82
Sewer – Residential: $1,397.62
Water Base Charge: $15.00
Sewer Base Charge: $30.00
Usage:
Current usage listed as 79 units
Somerville defines 1 unit as 100 cubic feet ≈ 748 gallons
79 units ≈ 59,092 gallons
Context:
Prior usage shown in the bill’s history is in the same general tank: high 30s to 70/80 units.
No massive spike, no “you must have a hidden catastrophic leak” situation.
We didn’t fill a pool, run a commercial car wash, or install an Olympic waterfall in the basement.
It’s normal two-family usage… and the total is over $2,250 for a single billing period.
That’s what pushed me to dig into rate tables, City presentations, and the broader financial picture.
2. How the FY26 rate structure actually works (and how my bill is “correct”)
The new 3-tier system
In FY26, Somerville moved residential water/sewer to a 3-tier, quarterly rate structure:
Water (per 100 cu ft / “unit”)
Tier 1 (0–9): $7.30
Tier 2 (10–18): $9.13
Tier 3 (19+): $10.95
Sewer (per unit)
Tier 1 (0–9): $12.51
Tier 2 (10–18): $15.63
Tier 3 (19+): $18.76
This is a steeply progressive structure on paper: higher usage = higher tier.
But here’s the catch for multi-families and larger households:
Tier 1 only covers 0–9 units
Tier 2 only covers 10–18 units
Everything above 18 is Tier 3 (the most expensive)
For a two-family building with kids, laundry, showers, etc., it’s almost impossible not to live in Tier 3 for most of your usage.
My bill’s usage through those tiers
Usage: 79 units
Split:
Tier 1: 9 units
Tier 2: 9 units
Tier 3: 79 – 18 = 61 units
Now run it through their FY26 rates.
Water:
Tier 1: 9 × 7.30 = $65.70
Tier 2: 9 × 9.13 = $82.17
Tier 3: 61 × 10.95 = $667.95
Water total: 65.70 + 82.17 + 667.95 = $815.82 → matches my bill exactly.
Sewer:
Tier 1: 9 × 12.51 = $112.59
Tier 2: 9 × 15.63 = $140.67
Tier 3: 61 × 18.76 = $1,144.36
Sewer total: 112.59 + 140.67 + 1,144.36 = $1,397.62 → matches my bill exactly.
Base charges for a 5/8″ meter (quarterly):
Water base: $15.00
Sewer base: $30.00
Total:
815.82 (water)
1,397.62 (sewer)
15
30
= $2,258.44
So:
My bill is not a miscalculation or a clerical error.
It is exactly what the City’s FY26 structure produces for 79 units.
That’s the point: the math is correct, the policy is the problem.
3. What changed from FY25 to FY26 (and why “fairness” is a half-truth)
The old system (FY25 and prior)
There was a special discount tier (for the first 8 units) at a lower combined rate.
Then multiple additional tiers for higher usage.
This meant everyone got their essential water at a cheaper rate.
Combined FY25 “discount block” rate (water + sewer) was roughly:
~$16.79 per unit for that first block (order-of-magnitude, based on the City tables).
The new system (FY26)
Discount block removed.
Only 3 tiers now.
Lowest combined price (Tier 1, 0–9 units) is:
Water: $7.30
Sewer: $12.51
Total: $19.81 per unit
That’s about an 18% increase on the most basic water use — your first showers, flushing, cooking, etc. — before you even touch Tier 2 or Tier 3.
The City says it wants to “reduce the burden on small residential users” and that under the old system, two- and three-family homes were “paying more than their fair share.” But in practical terms, here’s what happened:
The cheap first 8 units were killed off.
Normal households are now pushed quickly out of Tier 1 and 2 and into Tier 3.
Multi-family owner-occupants like me, with one meter, live almost entirely in Tier 3 for both water and sewer.
My own FY25 vs FY26 comparison
For the same 79 units, using FY25 rates and structure, my bill would have been roughly:
≈ $1,927 (approximate, based on FY25 tables and tier mapping).
FY26 bill for the same usage:
$2,258.44
Difference:
About $331 more
Roughly a 17% increase for identical usage
And that’s before we even talk about the billing cycle.
4. The billing-cycle change: from tri-annual to quarterly
This is the trick move that most people haven’t processed.
Before FY26
Residential water/sewer was billed three times a year (tri-annual)
Each bill covered roughly 4 months of usage
You got 3 large bills over 12 months
From FY26 forward
Residential billing shifted to quarterly
Each bill covers roughly 3 months
You now get 4 large bills per year
So you now:
Pay more often, and
Each bill reflects higher per-unit rates and harsher tiers
Residents open a bill and compare dollars, not billing period length. So someone sees a $2,200 bill and remembers a $2,000 bill from “last year” and thinks, “Okay, up a bit, must be inflation.” They don’t realize:
The old $2,000 might have covered 4 months at lower rates.
The new $2,258 covers 3 months at much higher rates.
Year over year, when you add the extra bill, the total annual burden jumps sharply.
This is why I say the system is technically honest but functionally misleading.
5. The trap of single-meter multi-family homes
Older housing stock in Somerville — especially:
two-families,
three-families,
and triple-deckers
was often built with one water line and one meter.
Under Massachusetts practice and local regulations:
The account holder (usually the owner) is responsible for the whole bill.
If a landlord wants tenants to pay by usage, they must:
create separately metered lines for each unit,
ensure everything is up to plumbing and building code,
pull necessary permits,
pay for inspections and sometimes main-line work.
That’s an expensive retrofit that can easily run into tens of thousands of dollars when you factor in:
opening walls/floors,
replumbing risers,
sometimes reconfiguring basement mechanicals.
So the realistic choices for many homeowners are:
Absorb these bills themselves (and raise rents to survive), or
Leave rent below what they’d need and slowly drown in costs.
Either way, the City’s decision to:
remove the discount tier,
compress the tiers,
raise rates, and
bill more frequently
falls hardest on exactly the owner-occupants you’d think they’d want to protect: the ones preserving older two- and three-family homes.
6. Enterprise funds, MWRA, and “outside money” — how it actually works
Somerville runs water and sewer as enterprise funds, which means:
They are supposed to be self-supporting through user fees.
The City tracks them separately from the general fund.
Large components of the budget are:
MWRA assessments for wholesale water and sewer service,
local operations (staff, maintenance, repairs),
and debt service for capital projects (pipes, mains, etc.)
The City does get outside financial help:
MWRA provides:
wholesale services,
certain grant/loan programs (e.g., for pipe rehab, inflow/infiltration reduction, lead service line replacement).
The State and feds provide:
low-interest loans and grants through the State Revolving Fund,
eligibility under ARPA and other stimulus programs for water/sewer and infrastructure projects.
But:
These funds mostly support capital construction and long-term projects.
Debt from these projects still typically has to be paid back from the enterprise funds, i.e., from ratepayers.
In FY25, Somerville used some retained earnings/free cash to freeze rates, then in FY26 snapped back with 18% / 12% increases plus structural changes.
So, yes, there is outside help — but the way the system is structured, ratepayers still shoulder the majority of the burden, and there is almost no meaningful safety net for non-senior, working-age households.
7. Big land-taking & redevelopment bets — and why they matter for this story
This is where you see what the City is willing to risk and spend, vs. what it asks from residents.
Below are four major examples that are already in the public record.
(A) 90 Washington Street — the $39M public safety building fiasco
Around 2019, the Somerville Redevelopment Authority (SRA) took about four acres at 90 Washington Street by eminent domain for a future public safety building and related projects.
The City’s initial payment (the “pro tanto” amount) was about $8.78 million.
The owner, Cobble Hill Center LLC, challenged the compensation in court.
A jury later determined the fair market value was $35.306 million, meaning the City had underpaid by roughly $26.5 million.
With interest and costs factored in, the City’s own reporting now puts the total impact around $39 million.
The City has since backed away from the original public safety building plan at that site and is now trying to regroup.
One decision, one taking, one miscalculated valuation — and the City is out tens of millions of dollars beyond what it planned.
(B) Somerville Armory — 191 Highland Ave — $5M eminent domain for an arts center
In 2021, the City moved to acquire the Somerville Armory at 191 Highland Ave by eminent domain.
The City Council approved a $5 million bond to pay the private owner (Highland Armory Realty Trust).
The idea: preserve an arts and community space in public hands.
Again, people can reasonably argue in favor of the goal — but it is still a $5 million discretionary acquisition, with ongoing costs for maintenance and programming that have to be absorbed somehow.
(C) Union Square / Green Line Extension — North Prospect Block (21 properties)
For the Union Square Green Line station and associated redevelopment, the SRA took what is commonly referenced as the North Prospect Block — a cluster of 21 properties in Union Square — by eminent domain.
Public reporting puts the total compensation for that block at around $4.5 million.
That works out to roughly $214,000 per property, in a location:
yards from a new light-rail station,
at the border of Somerville and Cambridge,
in a designated redevelopment zone with large upzoning and density potential.
Given how real estate values behave when you add a transit station and a zoning transformation:
That aggregate number raises serious questions about whether those initial “pro tanto” payments reflected full market value.
In eminent domain cases, property owners often seek additional “just compensation” through the courts after the taking.
We already know from the 90 Washington case that Somerville has underestimated value before, and a jury forced them to pay many millions more.
I’m not claiming that all 21 owners have sued or that there is a specific pending judgment. What I’m saying — and what I think is fair — is:
In a place like Union Square, 21 properties for ~$4.5M total warrants a serious look at whether those owners were fully compensated, and whether there is existing or potential litigation that has not yet surfaced prominently in the public conversation.
(D) Winter Hill Star Market / 299 Broadway — 17 years of dead land
The old Star Market site on Broadway in Winter Hill closed around 2007–2008.
For roughly 17 years, it sat largely vacant — a blighted, underused property in a major neighborhood node.
The City created the Winter Hill Urban Renewal Plan, got state sign-off, and secured eminent-domain authority over that site through the SRA.
At various points, there were disputes between the City and private owners about redevelopment plans, and the SRA publicly signaled that it was willing to use eminent domain if necessary to seize control.
Only very recently has a major $100M+ mixed-income redevelopment proposal truly started moving there.
For residents who live near that site, what they’ve seen is:
A large property frozen in time for nearly two decades
Limited tax or community benefit during that span
City resources (legal, planning, political) tied up in trying to steer the outcome
8. What all of that has to do with water/sewer bills
No one is saying “sell every asset and make water free.” But there are clear connections:
Risk appetite at the top vs. risk transfer at the bottom
The City is willing to make large, risky land bets (90 Washington) that can explode into tens of millions of dollars of unexpected cost when a jury disagrees.
It is willing to spend millions on discretionary acquisitions (Armory) and long-term redevelopment plays (Union, Winter Hill).
When those costs, debts, and obligations weigh on the budget, the City has two broad options:
Use more general-fund money / free cash / one-time funds to soften the impact; or
Push harder on ratepayers and property taxpayers.
The pattern we see: push hard on ratepayers.
Enterprise funds as pressure valves
Because water/sewer are enterprise funds, the City can raise rates without needing a Proposition 2½ override vote that might draw more public anger.
That makes them a politically convenient pressure valve: when larger budget needs or capital obligations are looming, it’s easier to justify higher water/sewer rates with “we have no choice” language.
Residents pay, in multiple ways
Residents pay directly in:
water and sewer bills,
property taxes,
a wide range of local fees.
They also pay indirectly when:
landlords have to raise rents to survive these costs,
older multi-family homeowners can’t pass through usage because of single-meter setups,
smaller property owners opt out and sell, making room for larger investors.
Opportunity cost
Every dollar that goes to covering a misjudged land taking or a long stretch of non-productive land is a dollar not available to:
expand affordability programs;
buffer rate spikes;
keep the discount tier for essential water;
or maintain more stable property-tax trajectories.
So when the City says, “Water/sewer rates have to go up; it’s just infrastructure,” that statement is incomplete. The total financial environment is shaped by choices — and those choices are falling hardest on regular residents.
9. Two parallel scandals, not one
From where I sit, there are really two distinct but connected stories:
Scandal #1: Bad meters, bad reads, bad bills
Faulty meters or misconfigured automatic reading systems.
Residents receiving obviously impossible bills (e.g., usage several times higher than historic patterns).
Class-action lawsuits alleging fraudulent and inaccurate billing.
Clear grounds for individual and class claims.
You’re already on this — and it’s important.
Scandal #2: A “legal” system that is financially abusive
Rates raised by 18% (water) and 12% (sewer) in a single year.
Discount tier for essential usage quietly eliminated.
Tiers compressed so normal family usage sits mostly in the highest rate.
Billing cycle moved from 3 big bills per year to 4.
Minimal to no meaningful relief for non-senior households.
Enterprise funds leveraged to push financial pressure onto average families, while the City absorbs or backfills risk from bigger bets and land deals.
In Scandal #2, every line item is “technically correct.”
That doesn’t make the outcome fair.
And politically, it’s easier to point at “bad meters” than to admit the entire structure is designed in a way that squeezes residents while maintaining City flexibility and protecting bond ratings.
10. What a serious investigation could ask and pull
If you decide to dig into this as a series, here are some concrete things that are ripe for public-records work:
Full FY24 and FY25 enterprise-fund budgets for water and sewer
All line items: MWRA assessments, debt service, personnel, retained earnings usage.
FY26 rate-setting memos and models
Internal spreadsheets showing how they expected the tier and cycle changes to impact different user classes (especially 2–3 family homes).
Documentation of the tri-annual → quarterly shift
Original rationale and any discussion of its impact on cash flow and annual totals.
Eminent domain case files and settlements
90 Washington: full case file, judgment, and any settlements or post-judgment motions.
191 Highland (Armory): taking documents, bond documents, any follow-on claims.
North Prospect Block: takings documents, pro tanto payments per parcel, and any follow-on “just compensation” lawsuits.
Winter Hill Star Market site
Urban Renewal Plan, SRA minutes, any litigation between the City/SRA and prior owners.
Affordability and discount programs
Internal emails and memos regarding:
expansion of low-income discounts beyond seniors,
legal opinions on using general fund or other dollars to buffer rate increases,
the decision to eliminate the discount tier rather than adjusting it.
ARPA and other one-time funds
How much went to water/sewer related projects, and whether any of that was structured to reduce ratepayer burden vs. purely capital expansion.
This would let you show, in hard documents:
What the City knew,
What it modeled,
What risks it took,
And how much of that risk it pushed downward.
11. Why I’m bringing this to you
You’re one of the few people who:
actually understands Somerville’s political ecosystem,
has shown willingness to spotlight uncomfortable truths,
and reaches the same people who open their mail and say, “How the hell did my water bill hit $2,200?”
I’m not asking you to take my word for any of this. I’m asking you to:
see that my bill is structurally “correct”,
see how the City built the structure, and
ask why normal homeowners and small landlords are being made to carry the cost of long-term ambitions and high-risk land tactics.
If you want:
I can send my actual bill PDF,
screenshots of the FY26 rate tables,
links to the meeting presentations,
and any supporting documents you need for a follow-up.
I’m fine being on the record by name.
Thanks for taking the time to read all this. I know it’s long, but that’s the only honest way to show how all these pieces connect.
Best,
Maninder Singh