by Matt Williams
Thursday afternoon Kemble Pope, the Executive Director of the Davis Chamber of Commerce sent out the following e-mail:
City Council & Members of the Water Advisory Commission,
Please accept this position statement from the Davis Chamber of Commerce regarding the water rate structure to finance the Surface Water Project.
Best regards,
Kemble K. Pope
Executive Director
Davis Chamber of Commerce
Then at the WAC meeting Bill Streng, Greg McNeece and Kemble all took the time to speak during Public Comment. Before I comment on the Position Statement itself (which appears after the line of stars at the end of this article, it is important to note
1) That there were some “disconnects” between the written Statement and what Bill, Greg and Kemble said during Public Comment,
2) A considerable amount of the Position Statement was made moot by the WAC when they voted unanimously to remove the Groundwater Only option from further consideration, and
3) The wording of the Position Statement appears to be telling the City Council to abandon or foreshorten the Water Advisory process.
Starting with the third point, Kemble Pope did start his Public Comment by apologizing to the WAC members for that unintended appearance. He said that he did not have the WAC members’ e-mail addresses and felt under the gun to get the position released yesterday, and went forward by including the one WAC e-mail address he did have, Chair Elaine Musser’s. While I personally accept Kemble’s apology as sincere, perhaps he will come here on the Vanguard and explain what was the reason the Position Statement had to be released on such an aggressive timeline.
The second point actually presents the Chamber with an opportunity to clearly demonstrate their good faith regarding their support of the WAC process. In his public comment, Kemble said, “Our door is open. We are ready to talk and want to talk.” Well Kemble, here is one WAC member’s thoughts for how you can show the Chamber’s sincerity when they say those words to the WAC.
A) Change the “Submitted” statement at the beginning of the document to read, “Submitted to the City of Davis Water Advisory Commission on May 10, 2012, with copies to the City of Davis City Council.“
B) Eliminate the words “deteriorating, environmentally unsound, and poor quality” from the last sentence of your Motivation section. You sound like Michael Harrington when you use that kind of hyperbole.
C) Change the tone of the Position from one of telling the Council what you want them to do to one of supporting the efforts of the WAC , especially since the WAC did exactly what you wanted in its vote Thursday night and eliminated a Groundwater Only option from further consideration
The third point should be easy. Both Bill and Greg clearly stated that what the Chamber is advocating for is a Uniform Block rate structure with a Fixed Rate component and a single tier Consumption-Based per gallon Variable Rate component. Your section 5, as written, proposes a 100% Variable Rate structure, with no mention of any Fixed Rate portion. A little wordsmithing should fix that “disconnect” between what is written and what Bill and Greg said.
Other than those changes there is a lot of good thought that flows from the Position Statement.
- Section 2: Look of the City makes a lot of sense and Bill’s story about Phoenix and Spring Training made that point real.
- Section 3: Rate Calculation Issues is completely in line with what the WAC expects to be doing in the coming weeks
- Section 4: Retrofit Costs was particularly interesting for me. I hadn’t thought about how much of a challenge shared walls between apartments could be in sub-metering. Thank you for sharing your very informed perspective. It was very helpful.
In closing, from my own personal perspective (and I am absolutely not speaking for the WAC when I say this), I agree with your statement that “The Woodland/Davis Clean Water Agency Surface Water Project would be a valuable asset to Davis”; however, I’m retaining an open mind to the possibility that a variation on the timing and sizing of that Project will be an even more valuable asset to Davis . . . and also that a regional surface water project that includes not only Woodland and Davis, but also West Sacramento will end up as the most valuable asset of all for Davis. Time will tell.
Based on all the above, I do hope the Chamber chooses to issue a revised version of its Position Statement, and sends it to the WAC rather than to Council.
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POSITION STATEMENT
Surface Water Project
Rate Structure
Unanimously adopted by the Government Relations Committee on May 10th, 2012 Submitted to the City of Davis City Council & Water Advisory Commission on May 10th, 2012
Motivation
The Woodland/Davis Clean Water Agency Surface Water Project would be a valuable asset to Davis with multiple long-term benefits to our community. It would reduce our current risk of water shortage and improve water quality by augmenting our deteriorating, environmentally unsound, and poor quality ground wells with river water.
Summary Conclusion
We support the Surface Water Project. The project should be completed in an affordable way that minimizes and manages the financial impact on the community equitably.
The proposed Surface Water Project plan and options must be clear and understandable to the average citizen in layman’s terms.
Favorable Time
Now is clearly a good time to obtain favorable financing and construction bids. The potential cost to solve a ground water shortage in any future emergency or in the face of changing environmental standards issued by the federal or state government would likely be exponentially more expensive.
Key Issues
1: Increasing rates and Increasing Conservation
The increasing rates charged for water service as well as the fear of looming large increases in the near future has been the driving force in the community’s collective conservation efforts.Over the last few years and especially the last several months, many individuals, businesses and apartment owners in Davis have implemented water conservation measures including:
- low flow toilets/showerheads and faucet aerators
- reduced landscape irrigation and reduced gutter flood from un-repaired irrigation
Since the majority of water usage is exterior (landscape), the remaining large potential savings are in reducing water for landscape uses.
2: Look of the City
The look of our city will be impacted by a new water rate structure. If we increase irrigation cost, it will increase citizen and business interest in a landscape style based on local native plants or desert style. Alternatively, if we wish to maintain the existing look of Davis, it will require accepting higher ongoing costs for landscape irrigation than we now pay, in the parks, greenbelts, homes, and businesses. This is a topic of concern either way. The principal of elasticity of demand dictates that people will use less water or other goods and services as the cost increases. However, assumptions made about future conservation use should be clearly defined in measureable terms for individual rate payers and placed clearly in context with the potential for no change in demand.
3: Rate Calculation Issues
To formulate a proposed rate structure, we strongly recommend estimating the cost of the surface water project based on ‘most likely’ conditions (rather than ‘worst case’). This method would be a good start because it would provide realistic guidance for the amount of revenue needed to make the payments for the project.
To assure honest and transparent disclosure and public discussion, rate increases should be disclosed to the public based on:
(1) Existing usage
(2) Estimated cost with assumed conservation
(3) Estimated cost with no conservation
The rate increases in 2011 were only presented with large assumed conservation, complex explanations, and appeared intentionally deceitful to the average person.
4: Retrofit Costs
Most apartments in Davis, as well as many multi-tenant businesses, have water lines under the concrete slabs. Unless they were designed as condos, a separate line for each unit doesn’t exist. These lines usually split off to separate dwelling units (with kitchens backing up to kitchens and bathrooms backing up to bathrooms) in a way that the water to one unit cannot be measured accurately. Trying to ‘sub- meter’ these units would require the residents to move out while the concrete slabs are jack-hammered out and the plumbing reinstalled so that each apartment has its own water line raising issues relating to penetrating firewalls such as encountering lead based paint and asbestos. Experts estimate a cost over $10,000 per unit on slab construction.
There are currently over 9,000 multi-family units in Davis. Attempting to sub-meter them could increase the cost of the Surface Water Project by a large percentage, possibly over 35%. Sub-metering apartments and other multi-tenant businesses is not economically feasible.
5: “Tiered” Rate Structure Problems
Any increased cost per gallon should encourage conservation without imposing additional “tier” penalties, especially for businesses that cannot conserve water.
Consideration should be given to small businesses with unavoidable usage, such as laundromats, etc.
The valuation of businesses is computed based on operating income. Accordingly, besides paying the increased water expense every month, a business has the additional burden of being devalued by those increased expenses.
Single family dwellings are not valued in the same way and will not suffer a direct valuation impact, although lenders would consider the increased water rates in computing a buyer’s ability to pay.
A fair “two tier” rate structure is almost impossible to construct. The number of people in a home and lot sizes would be poor assessment tools. Is a baby’s consumption equal to an adult’s? The cost of administration, both salaries and paperwork, would be significant. Charging the lowest rates for large lots might make sense to encourage attractive maintenance of exterior landscapes, but the largest lots tend to be owned by the wealthiest people. This is politically untenable.
With tiered rates it is impossible to predict the percentage of increase for a user because the amount of water usage varies. Generally, multi-tenant businesses and have less potential for conservation (per occupant) because their exterior water use is less and the owners have already taken most, if not all, conservation measures to avoid being penalized by the tier rate structure.
For all of these reasons we recommend a “One Tier” rate structure. Summary
We support the Surface Water Project. The City of Davis should have a water supply with both the high- quality and capacity to attract and retain the businesses that Davis needs in order to be financially sustainable. The proposed Surface Water Project is a long-term investment in the economic and environmental sustainability of our community. The benefits of this large community investment in long term surface water infrastructure outweighs the costs of maintaining a deteriorating ground water system and is prudent planning for the future.
The rate structure to finance the Surface Water Project must be equitable to businesses, apartment dwellers, and home owners. The rates must be presented in a transparent and clear manner which is, and is perceived to be, fair and reasonable.
Our community will support a Surface Water Project and its funding if the options, trade-offs, and costs are clearly presented.
I would add one thing here – when the Chamber of Commerce refers to “the Surface Water Project”, it is not clear precisely what that means. When I first read this position statement, my impression was the Chamber of Commerce was in favor of the current Surface Water Project [u][i][b]as proposed[/b][/i][/u]. Yet in rereading this position paper, it is not clear if that is actually what is meant. I would strongly suggest the Chamber of Commerce clarify that point, so everyone is clear on exactly what is being supported. Is the Chamber of Commerce in support of [u][i][b]the[/b][/i][/u] Surface Water Project [u][i][b]as proposed[/b][/i][/u], or in favor of [u][i][b]a[/b][/i][/u] surface water project. If the Chamber of Commerce is open to the idea of [u][i][b]a[/b][/i][/u] surface water project of some sort, do they have any particular preferences as to what it would look like?
[quote]C) Change the tone of the Position from one of telling the Council what you want them to do to one of supporting the efforts of the WAC , especially since the WAC did exactly what you wanted in its vote Thursday night and eliminated a Groundwater Only option from further consideration[/quote]
I want to follow up on this point. When citizens attempt to make an end run around the WAC and go directly to the City Council, in some cases actually urging the City Council to direct the WAC to change the way we operate, it feels very much like an attempt to interfere with the WAC’s ability to act as an independent body. (In the case of the Chamber of Commerce, I accept Kemble Pope’s apology and explanation for not contacting the WAC directly. We have been assured that will not be the case in the future.) When a City Council member attempts to push to take options off the table before the WAC has had the opportunity to evaluate the option in question, that too feels as if there is an attempt to interfere with the WAC’s ability to act as an independent body.
The WAC welcomes public input with open arms, and we have most definitely benefitted from much of the information that has been brought to our attention by interested citizens. But let’s allow the process to work as is fair, appropriate, and as the WAC’s mission directs – as an [u][i][b]independent[/b][/i][/u] advisory body to the City Council.
Elaine Roberts-Musser said . . .
“When citizens attempt to make an end run around the WAC and go directly to the City Council, in some cases actually urging the City Council to direct the WAC to change the way we operate, it feels very much like an attempt to interfere with the WAC’s ability to act as an independent body. (In the case of the Chamber of Commerce, I accept Kemble Pope’s apology and explanation for not contacting the WAC directly. We have been assured that will not be the case in the future.) [b]When a City Council member attempts to push to take options off the table before the WAC has had the opportunity to evaluate the option in question, that too feels as if there is an attempt to interfere with the WAC’s ability to act as an independent body.[/b]”
Well said Elaine. Very well said indeed.
Further, when individual candidates take the time to attend virtually evey WAC meeting they are showing both their respect for and support of the WAC process. I think voters would be well served by Council members who have shown the ability and desire to use their ears as their most important body part. Listening is the first step toward collaboration and consensus building, and Davis needs a substantial dose of both those characteristics. Rochelle won my vote in the last election by showing how committed she was to collaboration and consensus building. Dan Wolk has won my cote in this election by showing from the dais just how committed he is to collaboration and consensus building. Having more of that on the Council will serve Davis well.
[quote]Listening is the first step toward collaboration and consensus building, and Davis needs a substantial dose of both those characteristics.[/quote]
Amen!
[quote]Further, when individual candidates take the time to attend virtually evey WAC meeting they are showing both their respect for and support of the WAC process.[/quote]
Yes, Brett Lee has been a consistent observer of the WAC process, regularly attending WAC meetings. We have had some fruitful conversations, and I deeply respect his opinions. (Lucas Frierichs has also attended some meetings as well.) It is heartening when citizens take the trouble to get educated on probably one of the most important issues this city will ever face.
There have also been a few citizens and a UCD intern who have been regular attendees. Others are intently following WAC proceedings via videotape. Many have offered opinions, information, links to resources, proffers of persons to talk to. The WAC very much appreciates citizen involvement in this process. Whatever decision is made is one citizens will ultimately have to live with…