Sunday Commentary: Davis Deserves An Honest and Civil Debate on the Future of Water
Written by David Greenwald Sunday, 10 February 2013 07:37
On September 6, 2011, the Davis City Council pushed through, by a 4-1 vote, water rates that were advertised to be 14% rate hikes. As it turned out, in order to get to 14% rate hikes, the consumer would have to reduce usage by 20% and thus, by any reasonable means, the actual cost per gallon would go up by a lot more than 14%.
Not only did a large number of people protest these rate hikes through the Prop 218 process, although they fell well short of the number needed to prevent the rate hikes, another group of people emerged with a signature process to put the rate hikes to a vote.
Leading the way on the referendum process was attorney and former Davis City Councilmember Michael Harrington. In a very compressed timeline and using his own money, Mr. Harrington, using paid signature gatherers, narrowly qualified a referendum on the ballot.
On December 1, 2011, then-Mayor Pro Tem Rochelle Swanson and Councilmember Dan Wolk announced that they were pulling back their vote from September. When the full council came together they rescinded the rate hikes, installed a Water Advisory Committee (WAC) and commissioned a formal rate study.
Now we can all disagree with what came out of this yearlong process, but there is no doubt that any honest person has to conclude we have a better proposal - smaller, with a more fair rate structure, and we have considered most reasonable alternatives.
The Vanguard has never taken a position on the project as a whole. What the Vanguard has done along the way is attempt to push for a better process and a better project.
Along the way we have discovered that we really did not need an 18 mgd project. We do not use that much water now and, given the growth projections and our ability to utilize conjunctive use, we probably will not need that much additional water anytime in the foreseeable future.
The Vanguard was concerned about the rate structure. The current rate structure uses a very high fixed cost even when the water user uses very little water. The result is that, in effect, the low-end users subsidize the high-end users.
The Vanguard took a very clear stance on CBFR (the Consumption Based Fixed Rate component of the new water rate structure). It supported it because it was very obvious that, while the lower-end user still pays more per gallon than the high-end user, it is far more equitable in terms of costs.
There were reasonable concerns about the fairness of people being charged for last summer's water use, that the council mitigated by delaying the implementation of CBFR until 2015. There were reasonable concerns that setting the second tier at 10 ccf was setting the bar too low, and the city council adjusted the tier break to 18 ccf.
Those who have followed the process know that at one point the city's staff and consultants were not in favor of CBFR. Attorneys Kelly Salt and Harriet Steiner had doubts about the process. Rate consultant Doug Dove from Bartels did as well, as did General Manager Herb Niederberger and City Manager Steve Pinkerton.
After the WAC agreed to go to CBFR the first time, staff worked hard with Frank Loge and Matt Williams to make sure that the rate structure would produce the revenue needed to adequately fund project costs and that it met the strict Prop 218 requirements for proportionality.
The result was that by the time in early December that the council heard the CBFR rate proposal, it had the full backing from staff and attorneys. Even when council waivered, neither the WAC nor staff ever did.
So when Michael Harrington filed a lawsuit and Bob Dunning wrote a column questioning whether it passed the proportionality muster, we never believed they had a case - and we believe that the city has now sufficiently responded.
That is not to suggest that we do not still have some serious concerns about the project.
First, we believe that the city has made a mistake in separating the rates from the Measure I vote. The whole reason that we had a referendum to begin with is that the Prop 218 process is patently unfair. It allows for people to protest the rate vote through a an affirmative step that is far more rigorous than ordinary voting requirements.
It counts all non-responses as a vote in favor of the rate hike. It precludes entire classes of people who will be just as impacted as property owners from participation.
So yes, the city can make the claim that people will have a chance to vote on the project, but we know that the rates may double even without the project and, realistically, the voters will have no say.
In a town this size, we believe it conceivable that $1000 a month rate hikes might not be sufficiently high to generate a majority protest, given the limitations of the Prop 218 process.
Secondly, the project proponents concede that the rates will go up sharply under this project. Their defense of that is that rates will go up sharply - we have recently learned nearly double - absent a project.
This produces a potential burden on low income and fixed income residents, and the city has, in effect, thrown up its hands and not found a way to address this issue. This is a serious problem and one that may drive people out of their homes - and the Measure I proponents' response is that the era of cheap water is over.
It may well be, but they need a better answer here if they expect some people to support this measure.
The letter from CDM now validates concerns about the overall cost of this project. In early January they wrote, "We remain concerned that the DBO project may exceed the cost benchmark."
Project proponents have cited the DBO process as a way to avoid cost increases by pushing the risk to the operator rather than the city. However, project opponents have expressed concern that we are understating the cost of the project.
The Prop 218 process will obviously bind the city in the first five years. However, after five years, we can see from charts provided by the city that revenue needs will continue to increase over the next 30 years. Once the voters approve the project, they will only have the Prop 218 process to protect them from future rate increases.
We supported the all-debt financing of the project which smooths out the rate impact in the first five years, but we are now concerned with what the rates will look like after 2018, particularly with concerns that the $113 million project cost, with debt financing that could already push it toward the $250 million range, is artificially low.
We feel that these are reasonable concerns about the project. We would like to see the remainder of the debate parse out these issues against the needs of the community to secure a safe and reliable supply of water.
Instead, what we have is an opposition campaign led by Michael Harrington based on accusations and innuendo.
He makes assertions that are not backed by any evidence, "We believe there was ample probable cause to file the case and are looking forward to having a neutral forum where the City must show that its rate systems conform to Prop 218.
"We are very confident that, as they are written, the three rate structures at issue (current, Bartle Wells, and CBFR) do not conform to Prop 218."
Michael Harrington has made a series of baseless accusations.
He makes accusations such as, "On Dec 6, 2011, the CC dumped the bogus 9/6 rates, because CC members Wolk and Souza did not want to run for election/re-election in June 2012 on the same ballot as those illegal rates. Everything they have done since is to ram this project through."
He accuses public officials of illegal activities. He has accused others of lying.
"A local elected city official lied to Dunning about the United Water pull out?"
However, when he is called on these issues, he rarely explains his accusations, their basis, or shows evidence to back them up.
Far from it.
When people criticize his conduct, he accuses them of engaging in "personal attacks," and yet does not recognize that he has done the same thing.
When he is shown to be wrong, he will write without evidence or explanation, "I stand by my comments."
And yet, the case he is making is thin and flimsy.
While we believed there to be a certain amount of political ingenuity in filing the case against the city on the basis of non-payment, we do not believe he has much to stand on with regard to non-payment of water by the city or the proportionality issue.
As Frank Loge and Matt Williams argue in their response column, "Saying rates are not proportional, though, does not make it so."
They continue, "What would a proportional system look like? The suit offers no specifics beyond Dunning's column, which argues that every gallon of water should cost the same to deliver to every ratepayer every day of a given year."
"Reality, however, does not conform to this analysis," they contend.
That is not how we wish to see discourse carried out in this community.
The Vanguard has spent countless hours attempting to get information from the city to respond to these claims made. At the end of this week, the city has finally provided us with the information that can debunk most of these falsities.
We have spent even more time attempting to get information from Mr. Harrington to lay out the basis for his complaints. His response is often, in due time, where he cites that he is volunteering his time for this as though that excuses him from having to substantiate his very serious charges against the city and elected officials.
It certainly has not stopped him from spending tens of thousands of his own money since September 6 and spending, at this point, hundreds of hours working on this.
We applaud his dedication and service to his community, we applaud his raising legitimate questions, we believe that this is a better project now than it was on September 7, 2011, but we seriously question the damage that this has done to our community.
We believe that the community is legitimately divided on this, that there are tough issues that have not been adequately addressed. Some of our contacts have noted that this issue cuts sharply through the community and that friends have ended up on different sides of the issue.
It is a tough issue, we believe that there are reasonable differences that should play out on the public stage, but that becomes difficult when one prominent individual makes a series of unsubstantiated and reckless charges.
We thus thank Mr. Harrington for his dedication to our great community, but ask that he conduct himself in a manner that is a better reflection of the great principles he claims to stand for.
---David M. Greenwald reporting
A proposal to raise rates to $1,000.00 per month would energize a significant share of the voting public, but I don't believe it would comprise 50%+1. With most public proposals -- development projects are a classic example -- the majority of people simply don't pay enough attention until the proposal becomes reality. As soon as the first bills hit the mailboxes there'd be an enormous outcry, much of it along the lines of "Why didn't someone tell me about this!"
I don't blame people for not paying attention; we all have busy lives, and deciphering mailers describing complex matters lands pretty low on most folks' priority lists. But the 218 process takes unreasonable advantage of this, essentially giving the project proponents rubber-stamp approval.
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David
First, my appreciation for a balanced article on the difficulties in establishing an honest and civil conversation about this issue. One point I would like to address:
This produces a potential burden on low income and fixed income residents that the city has in effect thrown up its hands and not found a way to address. This is a serious problem and one that may cost people out of their homes and the Measure I proponent response is that the era of cheap water is over.
While the city may have to date " thrown up its hands" this is certainly not true of some of the supporters of the proposal. Almost a year ago, I had proposed an entirely voluntary program whereby more affluent neighbors or friends could help to defray some of the costs of those at risk of being priced out of their homes.
There were zero comments about finding ways to implement such a program. More recently, Robb had suggested the possibility of creating a fund with much the same purpose in mind. Again to the best of my knowledge, no comments either from the posting community here, from the opponents of the surface water project, who if they were being honest about their concern for the less affluent members of the community might find this a topic for consideration as an alternative to simply saying "no", or from any representative of the city.
What I would like to see is a conversation, perhaps spearheaded by Robb if he felt he had the time and energy to commit, to pursuing, in conjunction with the city, business leaders, faith community, service groups ....alternatives for helping the economically challenged to pay for the water that we all now know will become much more expensive with or without the project. By acknowledging the point that we will be paying more for our water with or without the project would allow us to 1) Consider the inevitable hit on the resources of our most vulnerable and consider how best to mitigate this foreseeable hardship 2) Stop using this population as a pretext for not addressing our future water expenses responsibly.
I do not know what it amounts to, but at the meeting at the senior center this question was brought up and the male presenter (whose name I do not know exactly) said there will be a program comparable to the PG&E version, (whatever it's called, can't remember that either)
On the issue of affordability programs, the CBFR rate structure was designed to be its own self-funding affordability program. Some will call that social engineering, but in reality it is removing an unfair, unproportional structural subsidy that seniors and low income residents of Davis are giving to the water wasters in Davis.
Here are the numbers.
100.00% --- total accounts --- 16,433 accounts
74.49% --- total accounts that decrease --- 12,241 accounts
57.06% --- accounts that decrease over 10% --- 9,379 accounts
17.42% --- accounts that decrease over 25% --- 2,862 accounts
0.66% --- accounts are unchanged --- 108 accounts
24.85% --- total accounts that increase --- 4,084 accounts
10.65% --- accounts that increase 10% --- 1,750 accounts
9.05% --- accounts that increase 10-25% --- 1,488 accounts
4.09% --- accounts that increase 25-50% --- 672 accounts
0.85% --- accounts that increase 50-75% --- 139 accounts
0.13% --- accounts that increase 75-100% --- 22 accounts
0.08% --- accounts that increase 100-200% --- 13 accounts
"water wasters" - Is this those families that have larger, grass-covered yards? Those families with a pool in the backyard? Those families with several shower-loving teenagers in the house?
If not, then what are our "water wasters"? Since we are punishing them with a much more painful rate increase, I think we should at least define what they are.
David: I stand by my comments.
The rates are illegal. Not in a criminal sense, but as a continuing gross violation of Prop 218. I didn't write the law; I am just applying it to local facts that the water staff and CC and attorneys created.
I will disclose my analysis at the appropriate time in a neutral forum.
The CC made a political decision to repeal the rates rather than put them to the voters on the June 2012 ballot.
The project reduction from 18 mgd to 12 mgd had little or nothing to do with the WAC: the project was downsized because it became public knowledge that the consultants and pro-develepment politicians such as Saylor and Souza had built in bogus assumptions to drive up the "needed" output to 18 mgd.
The two false assumptions that only came to light after the referendum qualified were the 1% population growth rate that was built into the demand calculations. We all know that growth target was put into place on a 3/2 vote by the Asmundson CC, with Sue and I voting no.
The actual, and future expected, local city population growth has been about 1/2% or less, if memory serves me.
Secondly, the 18 mgd "needed demand" came from the city's failure to adopt the obvious fact that in the past few years, the average per capita consumption of potable has fallen like a skydiver in free fall. Again, I dont have the numbers here in front of me, but the decrease is dramatic.
If in 2010-11 staff had not used the false 1% growth target and the high consumption data that was long outdated and flat out false, there is no way they could have justified the 18 mgd that would have supplied huge amounts of surplus water for urban development surrounding Davis and up the corridors to Woodland.
The WAC had little or nothing to do with staff realizing after the referendum qualifing that they could no longer get away with the false population and water consumption assumptions. The 6 mgd reduction 12 mgd reduction was pretty much just announced to the WAC.
As to the city's long term free use of ratepayer money, to subsidize the City's general plan, that is a matter of fact. We caught the City stone-cold, and the legal case follows from there.
David, how you run your Blog and write your articles is your business, but I suggest you stop swallowing hook, line and sinker legal memos from attorneys who seek to justify and excuse their past conduct and work product. You of all people should know better than that.
David: First off, I commend you for this piece. I might quibble with some of the details of the recounted history, and with respect to your comments about Mr. Harrington ask why they took so long, but with those things aside, this is a well written and balanced opinion piece that is worthy of Davis.
I have one question though.
You praise the ultimate result of the referendum;
"Now we can all disagree with what came out of this yearlong process, but there is no doubt that any honest person has to conclude we have a better proposal - smaller, with a more fair rate structure, and we have considered most reasonable alternatives."
and you ascribe the success of the referendum to Mr. Harrington's efforts;
"In a very compressed timeline and using his own money, Mr. Harrington, using paid signature gatherers, narrowly qualified a referendum on the ballot."
yet at the same time, you chastise Mr. Harrington for a litany of actions which he has used throughout the process (which I won't bother repeating).
Since I would argue that the referendum would have failed without his questionable tactics, my question then, and I ask it in all seriousness, is this an example where you believe that the ends justify the means?
In my opinion, Mr. Harrington's actions preclude him from receiving any credit for the outcome. It is instead our City Council, members of the WAC, and the City Staff who have done the work and who rightly should receive all of the credit.
MH
The project reduction from 18 mgd to 12 mgd had little or nothing to do with the WAC: the project was downsized because it became public knowledge that the consultants and pro-develepment politicians such as Saylor and Souza had built in bogus assumptions to drive up the "needed" output to 18 mgd.
I would rephrase this to provide a different perspective.
The project reduction from 18 mgd to 12 mgd had little or nothing to do with the WAC: the project was downsized because it became public knowledge that given divergences from the previously anticipated amount of growth and per capita consumption of potable water, the larger capacity was no longer felt necessary.
Sounds quite a bit different when you take out the personal smears, loaded language and innuendo doesn't it ?
Med: Sorry, but I know a lot of the history, and some of the inside stories for the water debacle. I stick by my comments. Saying Saylor and Souza wanted this extra large plant for supply of water for future development, and potential support for political careers, is not rocket science to the ears of people in town who have followed these guys over the years.
I have a degree from UCD in Sociology. It's a wonderful pre-law degree. It teaches you to always look at the assumptions underlying the fancy charts and graphs, and look at the various interest groups behind proposals. The extra large water plant at 18 mgd was not an accident.
Medwoman, sorry to say, but it seems that you think the reliance on obviously bogus population growth and water demand data was an accident .... I happen to believe it was not an accident. We just have to agree to disagree.
Don Shor said . . .
"Accounts that decrease or increase with respect to what? Each other? Their current proportion? Their current actual billing?"
Don, using the six periods of 2011 bi-monthly consumption for each of the 16,433 accounts in the Davis system, I ran a side by side analysis comparing what each account was paying under the current fixed-variable structure to a CBFR structure that generated the exact same $9,978,000 in revenue (the 2011 actual value).
Said another way, each account was compared to itself at the exact same level of consumption.
Frankly said . . .
"water wasters" - Is this those families that have larger, grass-covered yards? Those families with a pool in the backyard? Those families with several shower-loving teenagers in the house?
If not, then what are our "water wasters"? Since we are punishing them with a much more painful rate increase, I think we should at least define what they are."
In the water industry the term "water wasters" is capsulized by the following question from the Indio Water Authority's website:
Do you ever see water running in the street from overwatered landscapes, broken sprinklers, flooding in parking lots, or overflowing water fountains? The public are our eyes in the community and we rely on your communication to help stop water wasters. The Indio Water Authority is doing our part by investigating and addressing waste caused by:
-- Excess water runoff
-- Sprinklers pointed at hard surfaces (i.e. sidewalks and roadways) instead of landscape
-- Watering while it is raining
-- Hosing down driveways, sidewalks, or other hard surfaces
-- Watering too long or too often
-- Wasting water by not repairing leaks
-- Commercial car washing or pressure washing without collecting water to prevent runoff
Excess water not only wastes valuable resources but also causes damage to sidewalks, curbs, gutters, and pavement, costing residents extra tax dollars each year.
The goal of the water waste program is to make sure we solve the problem by teaching people how to do a better job of using water outdoors. To help customers use water wisely, the Indio Water Authority offers free water audits and analyses of landscapes and irrigation systems.
Nowhere in there do you see the condition of "families that have larger, grass-covered yards." What you see are the actions that are associated with grass regardless of yard size or family size. Irrigation water sheeting off a lawn of grass and running down the gutter does nothing to promote family values.
Interestingly enough the evaporation from a pool uses less water than the same surface area of lawn uses. So unless you fully drain your pool, you are not at risk of being labeled a water waster if you simply are topping off your pool to replace the amount of evaporation.
Now we all know that shower-loving teenagers are simply washing their sins down the drain, and any effort to change that behavior is like herding cats. So adolescence by definition gets a mercy exception from being labeled as a water waster. 8>)
Michael Harrington said . . .
"The project reduction from 18 mgd to 12 mgd had little or nothing to do with the WAC: the project was downsized because it became public knowledge that the consultants and pro-develepment politicians such as Saylor and Souza had built in bogus assumptions to drive up the "needed" output to 18 mgd.
The two false assumptions that only came to light after the referendum qualified were the 1% population growth rate that was built into the demand calculations. We all know that growth target was put into place on a 3/2 vote by the Asmundson CC, with Sue and I voting no.
The actual, and future expected, local city population growth has been about 1/2% or less, if memory serves me.
Secondly, the 18 mgd "needed demand" came from the city's failure to adopt the obvious fact that in the past few years, the average per capita consumption of potable has fallen like a skydiver in free fall. Again, I dont have the numbers here in front of me, but the decrease is dramatic."
Michael, Michael, Michael, you know that what you say above is not accurate. Why do you continue to say it?
The assumptions that were included in the WDCWA EIR that supported the 40 mgd sizing (18 for Davis) used the data that was available at that time. Let's look at those assumptions and the changes in the available data that were openly and transparently discussed in the WAC meetings:
1) The 40 mgd sizing that resulted in the $150 million cost estimate was developed in 2009 as part of the EIR submission process based on the historical data up through and including 2008. During the 10-year period ending in 2008, Davis experienced population growth that exceeded 1% compounded per year. Statistically, projecting similar population increases going forward was prudent. However, the passage of Measure J and the 1% Growth Cap caused the engineers to scale back that population growth to 1%. per year.
2) The economic collapse halted all housing growth for a period of time. As a result the 2009 population estimates of 89,335 by 2040 contained in the 2009 EIR were scaled back by the WAC to 86,795 in 2040. That change alone reduced the 40 mgd to 38.8 mgd.
3) In 2009 the gallons per person per day of water used had consistently been at the 197 gpcd level over the prior 10-year period. In 2011 due to the increased awareness of conservation and the economic decline the gpcd level had dropped to 152 gpcd. That change alone resuced the 40 mgd to 29.4 mgd.
4) Taken together the two effects result in the 40 mgd plant going to 28.5 mgd.
5) Due to the dry spring and summer in 2012, the gpcd level for Davis is 165 gpcd. That drought/no drought variability jumps the 28.5 mgd back up to 31.0 mgd.
So, all the above very dry, very boring factual numbers detail in stark reality exactly how solid the original assumptions were, as well as what has changed in the period from 2008 to 2011.
"Said another way, each account was compared to itself at the exact same level of consumption."
I say right on brother, it's about time responsibility falls where it belongs.
Also to comment on water wasters, I see how much that would change consumption by the definitions listed. By this definition, if you just use but don't "waste", I bet you end up close to average or close to median, if you conserve, then you really save.
Probably BEFORE adolescence is when parents have their chance at raising responsible water users (and all the other training too), by adolescence they are who they will be for a long time if not forever.
MH
I stick by my comments. Saying Saylor and Souza wanted this extra large plant for supply of water for future development, and potential support for political careers, is not rocket science
This is no surprise that you stick by your comments since you frequently seem to regardless of evidence and facts presented to the contrary. While a degree in Sociology may teach one to look at the assumptions underlying the fancy charts and graphs, it would seem that in your case, you interpreted this to mean that you were able to read people's minds so as to ascertain their motives. I do not know the motives of either Saylor nor Souza since I have not spoken directly with either about this issue. So I will use my own example as the illustration of how you seem to approach mind reading ( aka, looking at underlying assumptions).
In my post, I made no assertion whatsoever. I merely rephrased your paragraph into more neutral terms.
You then decided that you have special knowledge of my thought process.
sorry to say, but it seems that you think the reliance on obviously bogus population growth and water demand data was an accident .... I happen to believe it was not an accident. We just have to agree to disagree.
So you went in one huge flying leap from my rephrasing because I dislike the tactic of using denigration and innuendo as a routine form of communication, to telling me what it is that I think. If these are the kinds of conclusions that you are drawing on a regular basis, it would give me serious pause about your means of determining anyone's motive for any action.
As the author of many "there is no cheap options..." and "the rates are going up regardless..." comments in the past I can say that my point was not to minimize the impact on the poor, but rather to counter the false premise that our water rates would stay as they are absent the project.
I do not believe that we can have an honest discussion of the impacts of the rates on the poor, nor possible solutions to counter those impacts, until we agree on what the extent of those impacts will be.
In other words, as long as one side is proclaiming that they are protecting the poor by opposing the project, then no honest discussion of the problem is possible. For that reason I think it is disingenuous to say that the City has 'thrown up its hands' or imply that the proponents are in anyway minimizing the problem.
It is not enough to proclaim that "This is a serious problem and one that may drive people out of their homes" as David does above. In order to address the issue directly we need to agree on what the increased costs will be, and then assess the number of people whose livelihood or homes will truly be threatened (and not just inconvenienced). Only then will we know if Medwoman's or Robb's ideas will be possible.
David Greenwald: "I believe I covered the issue a few weeks ago when I reported that absent a project, rates would double in five years."
How does your finally acknowledging the obvious (after more than a year of denial) in anyway "assess the number of people whose livelihood or homes will truly be threatened (and not just inconvenienced)?"
