A LIQUID OUTRAGE: After we reported in February that the city’s water rates were likely to go up by about 9 percent, Chelsea Now felt kind of blindsided when despite the best efforts of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Comptroller William Thompson, half the City Council, and Chelsea water guru David Ferguson of the Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition (CWCWC), the Water Board boosted rates last week by 11.5 percent (to $5.23 per 100 cubic feet, from $4.68). Ferguson, who attended the last public forum on the increase on April 26, said the event was packed with “many people who don’t usually come to these things—but they’re concerned about housing,” since the Rent Guidelines Board routinely adds such increases to their estimate of landlord costs when determining the annual increases for rent-stabilized apartments. “Yet we [water advocates] know they [the Water Board] waste so much money,” Ferguson told Chelsea Now. He added that perhaps 10 to 15 percent of the increase stems from the Croton filtration plant in the Bronx, against which his organization has fought for years. “I knew when construction began on the plant, it would be trouble,” he said. Frank Eadie, C.B. 4 board member and fellow co-founder of CWCWC, called the Croton plant an “abomination” and “an insult to the people in the Bronx,” and added that the current rate increase was just another example of the City making the poorest of its citizens pay for its folly.

DOCUMENTARY STARS IN THE MAKING: Ed Hamilton and his girlfriend, Debbie Martin, may make it to Hollywood just yet. The two (especially Ed) were recently featured in an Australian Broadcast Corporation documentary spot directed by journalist Michael Maher, an Aussie ex-pat who moved to New York City in January after an eight-year stint as a foreign correspondent that took him all over the world. The 15-minute spot, which aired in Australia last Tuesday night, focuses on the changes in Chelsea wrought by gentrification, Hamilton and Martin’s Living With Legends (Hotel Chelsea) blog, and an imbroglio between Hamilton and neighbor Cindy Gallop, whose funky, opulent loft in the old McBurney YMCA, across from the Hotel Chelsea, was featured in New York Magazine. (Chelsea Now wrote about the tête-à-tête last October.) “I was just surfing the Web and came across Ed’s blog post about Cindy, and thought it would make a good New York City slice-of-life story,” said Maher. “The Hotel Chelsea as a bastion of bohemia is known throughout the world. And gentrification is happening in major cities across the globe, including Sydney, where I’m from.” Hamilton, meanwhile, is seeing his star rise, with follow-up interviews on Australian radio and a book about the Hotel Chelsea due out soon. “The whole process has been a lot of fun,” he said.