As I read the front page article in last week’s Kirkland Reporter, “Living in Kirkland getting more expensive,” I was once again reminded of the “entitlement” mentality of government and utilities. As residents of the City of Kirkland, we have no choices when it comes to providers of sewer, garbage, water, gas and electricity. Consequently, when those utility companies decide they aren’t making enough money, they raise our rates. We are totally at their mercy. Of course, these increases have to be approved by the City Council; however, since they are part of a tax and spend government, I have no confidence that they will say no to increases.

I urge the City Council to push back on these increases and tell the utility companies they’ll need to look at revising internal operations and trimming layers of management in order to balance their budgets. Stop just passing these increases onto the consumers who are forced to use those services. It’s bad enough to not have choices in our utility providers; their out of control increases make it even worse.

Laurel Saromines, Kirkland