re: Welcome to Commifornia. Mayor threatens to shut water off at homes

I used to work with a guy who dated a girl who grew up in a city in a USSR country, can't remember which. He said she told him the only heating available to the populace was via a centralized system controlled by the government, of course. Any time the populace would act up and protest in the winter the Soviet government there would simply shut down the heating for the city.

So your assessment couldn't be any more on point, except that the seasons are in reverse.