Water bills in Colorado Springs won’t go up this year after all.Colorado Springs Utilities will withdraw a proposed rate hike, which was to have been considered Tuesday by the City Council.The rate hike would have raised the typical residential monthly bill by $4.59, the largest percentage increase since at least 2000.But the proposal ran aground after The Gazette failed to publish the legal notice for the public hearing the required 30 days prior to the Aug. 12 meeting.Gazette publisher P. Scott McKibben said Wednesday he was not aware there had been a problem.”We will look into this and take whatever measures we need to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” he said.Utilities spokesman Mark Murphy said: “To The Gazette’s credit, I’ve been working rate cases here for 11 years, and this is the first time a legal notice wasn’t published when it was supposed to be. We will work with The Gazette to improve the process moving forward.”Murphy said because the process would have to be restarted, Utilities officials elected to combine the rate increase proposal with another water rate hike request slated for 2009.”Instead of having two rate cases close together, we’ll go ahead and file the case planned for spring in December and have a new effective date in February,” he said.The city hasn’t figured how much the combined rate case will cost customers.Meantime, he said the cityowned utility will look for other ways to cut costs.”The needs haven’t changed at all,” Murphy said. “We’ll have to continue to tighten our belt for another couple of months.”-Contact the writer: 636-0238 or pam.zubeck@gazettedev.gazette.com

A huge cairn beckons to hikers on a ridge on Culebra Peak. Photo by