where does your water come from and can you drink it straight out of the tap, when I was in L.A. I saw a lot of people buying bottled water. I would rather have a water meter and pay for what I use but smaller homes with less people are subsidising monster homes with 4 bathrooms and8 people like the one next door by paying a flat rate. it sounds expensive for the water but I think we have some of the best water in north America, great to drink it right from the tap and not harsh on copper pipes.
Briefly: Most of LA water comes from the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The city of LA purchased a lake, MONO Lake, some 100 years ago, to supply water to a thirsty city. The water goes down through the CALIFORNIA AQUEDUCT - an intricate system of canals, waterways, rivers, pumps and purification stations. You can imagine the costs involved. The result is: we don't rely on rainfall (what's that??), but on snow packs in the Sierras, some 350 miles away.
Our tap water IS fit to drink. The bottle water people drink is actually tap water that goes through reverse osmosis and other filtering devices. Personally, I have a filtering system in my home: I use filtered tap water, then boil it. My homemade coffee is so good, it can compete with Starbucks coffee, and win. And it doesn't cost me $2 a cup. My cost for water is 1/2 a cent per gallon. Probably the same as yours. I don't have lavish landscape, in fact my landscape is drought friendly - we call it Arizona style, so I don't waste water on irrigation. The trend is to move from green landscape to Arizona style landscape of rocks and cacti.
Every home and business is metered, so you pay for what you use, plus the general fixed costs (for maintenance of the water company equipment, capital investments, repairs of water lines, etc). When I pay my water bill, I don't want to pay for my neighbor's. Our system is not perfect, but it's much better than other arid places.