Audubon Water Company's proposed 43 percent rate increase is egregious and outrageous. Not only is this extreme rate increase on par with skyrocketing and absurd health-care rates but it comes during a year when many people had to close or slow their businesses, are underemployed or have no job at all.

COVID-19 has put the nation in peril, and some are forecasting a dark economic turn after the tailspin we've already been through since mid-March.

A proposed 43 percent rate increase at this time is exorbitant and should not be allowed to be passed.

Audubon Water Company needs improved leadership to better manage rate increases, putting them in line with workers' cost-of-living increases.