Oh, and I've lived in Greater Cincinnati for 46 years.

People don't appreciate what is given to them for free. If you do not pay for it, you do not understand the value of what you are getting. I live in Venezuela, where water is practically free, and I can guarantee that giving water for free to the people does not work. National shortages are incredibly common and most rural areas get water once a week or less.

You don't have to give people an infinite amount of water for free.

Figure out how much a household needs and charge them for anything above that.

@abge, please work that equation out for me...who's to determine what a household needs?

Seriously? OK.

According to a 5-second google search, men need 13 cups and women need 9 cups a day. Multiple by however many people are in the house.

Average toilet use is ~20 Gallons per person.

Just to make it easy, let's say a household gets ~25 Gallons per person per day for free. In my city that would cost less that 25 cents per person per day.

Not that hard.

"Bengals fans who hold tickets (or boycotted) don't live in Cincinnati. They live in outlying areas. And those outlying areas were upset because they didn't want their sales tax to increase when they bought their new big screen TVs. "

You live in the outlying areas, at least you claimed you did the last time you were spinning yarns about Cincinnati. So what are you talking about? People were fine with it? Only if they're super rich like you. You're not exactly a man of the people.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-18/cincinnati-stadiums-bury-county-government-in-debt.html

"Residents have seen a public hospital sold, mass-transit investments postponed and little private development near the stadiums that didn’t involve additional public subsidies, Portune said."

Yeah it's just wonderful. No tax relief as promised and skyrocketing debt, while the county sells off essential services.

"Oh, and I've lived in Greater Cincinnati for 46 years."

Right, code for outlying areas.

"So you believe everything you read in the newspapers and don't believe there is any political motivation behind it? Hahahahaha....... What a joke"

I believe the local media and the WSJ over you, who is notorious for making stuff up. Yes.

What possible political motivation would the WSJ have for denouncing a business decision that adversely affected the local population? Are you seriously going to claim the WSJ has an anti-business bias now?

i lived in Avondale and Hartwell for several years before I was married and for the first 3 years of our married life. Both of those neighborhoods are within the city limits. Your "friends" for however long have probably *never* lived within the city limits. I have generally loved within 20 miles of downtown except for my time in the Corps.

And Rob Portune is an ass. Just ask his friends and acquaintances. He's a politician who is upset because the voters have been screaming no to that stupid street car plan for years.

@abge - Shower/bathing water and cooking water and babies need much more water than adults. You are simplifying and overlooking some key factors in your math.

I'm not going to try to keep your various stories straight. It's whatever is convenient for your argument at the time. Before you said you lived next to Jungle Jim's, which is nowhere near the city limits and is like a 35 minute drive from downtown and is in Butler County.

@Draug

I'm not a waterologist. The point is, have a qualified group decide the minimum acceptable amount of water a person needs and give them that much for free every day. If they want to use more than that, they have to pay. Maybe 25 gal/person/day is too low, but it's better than nothing.

http://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/features/story.aspx?ID=1562012

Here's a good summary of how the Browns have screwed over Cincinnati, and it even has polling data on the tax.

@abgemacht: if water is that cheap then how come people do not have enough to pay their bills?

"He's a politician who is upset because the voters have been screaming no to that stupid street car plan for years."

He's a politician who has been neckdeep in the stadium mess and has been trying to get the Bengals to renegotiate the lease since he was elected commissioner. The Bengals heavily funded his opponent and Portune still won in a deeply Republican county.

Easily.

Minimum wage in Michigan is 7.40. 2 adults living on minimum wage job at 40 hours per week is an pre-tax income of ~30k. Since Draug didn't like my water estimate, let's use the more generous estimate of 100 gallons per day per person, which works out to around ~$30 per month for a family of 4 in Detroit. That's over 10% of that families annual wage just one water. Ridiculous.

"if water is that cheap then how come people do not have enough to pay their bills?"

Because wages are that low.

lol missed a decimal.

1% pre-tax income. That may not seem like a lot, but the situation I laid out is actually much better than what I think a lot of people in Detroit are facing.

A better question to ask, I think, is if it's so cheap,why would we as a society even worry about it? For such a basic human need, it's an insignificant drop in the bucket compared to everything else we waste money on.