CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Residents in and around the city of Rockport are unhappy after the city increased their water bills starting in the month of October.
Rockport residents who live within the city limits have a 3.6% increase in their water bill. But, for people who live outside of the Rockport city limits water bill increase is over 10%.
Andrew Kane is an upset Rockport resident who started a petition against the rising water bills. He said, "It’s not okay, just because you can cite some examples of other cities that are doing the same things with their out-of-city customers does not make it right."
Kane has family living in the Fulton area who are being impacted by the out-of-city limits 10% water bill increase.
Rockport city officials said the increase in water bills is due to inflation.
"There is an increase in everything, cost is going up to maintain our system, and to purchase our water, we purchase our water from San Pat, so any increase in water costs is passed directly to the consumer," Rockport city manager, Vanessa Shrauner, said.
Kane expressed his confusion on why the out-of-city residents pay more.
Shrauner said that they pay more because they do not pay Rockport property taxes and that this practice is common among other cities.
"If they pay, if everybody pays the same, the in city taxpayers would be supplementing the out-of-city non-taxpayers," Shrauner said.
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