Earlier this week, Councilmember Brett Lee made the comment where he suggested that past councils had done us no favors with regard to financing the surface water project.
“Without casting blame, I must admit I truly lament that the councils that preceded us did not have the foresight to better financially plan for this project,” Councilmember Lee respectfully wrote. “We have been told that accessing surface water has been in the works ‘for the past 20 years.’ If that has been so, why have we not put any money aside for this very expensive project?”
No one likes to re-hash the past. No one apparently likes to assign blame. But earlier this week, the Vanguard, to surprisingly little response wrote: The city of Davis and its voters are largely locked into their choice. They are locked in because of the stubborn doggedness of the previous council that failed to plan for the future with rate hikes, a rate study and proper outreach. And we are locked into this because we have no other realistic options at this point.
I am not particularly happy about this revelation, but it is what it is.
Yesterday I had a conversation with a member of the council who was outlining things that he or she wanted to do after the council wrapped up dealing with water and the employee contracts, hopefully by the end of October.
At that time, it really occurred to me just how much of what we are having to do now in terms of heavy lifting is due to the failure of the last council majority to make proper decisions.
There are two critical points in time when the council could have changed the course of Davis history and instead did not. One of those was the budget debate in June of 2009. And the other was the water decisions in May of 2010.
We all know the date of September 6, 2011, but few understand how critical May 11, 2010 was to the city of Davis.
That was the date of the first public discussion on what turned out to be a very modest 5% water rate increase for the first year. Just that modest rate increase generated a number of citizens coming forward to complain.
The remarkable thing about that vote is that the one-year rate hike would be a prelude. They were projecting a 23% increase in 2011/12, and then 20% each of 12/13 and 13/14.
Those rates would have doubled water rates. As we know, the eventual impact would be far larger than that – even now.
The problem is that this was a remarkably cynical and manipulative ploy. You see, the date again was May 11, 2010, less than a month away from elections.
We knew that three members of that council would no longer be on the council by January of 2011. Lamar Heystek and Ruth Asmundson declined to run again, while Don Saylor would serve six months as mayor before moving on to the County Board of Supervisors and, seeing as he was running unopposed, we knew he would be gone in seven months as well.
It was Lamar Heystek who made the point that the council was pushing off the tough decisions to a point in time when the majority of the decision makers would not be on council.
Of those three, only Lamar Heystek rejected the policy direction.
In the fact of public criticism, Stephen Souza and Don Saylor decided to lecture the public on the necessity of the project.
Mr. Souza’s explanation was that the council’s hands are tied by decisions made by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency laid down to the State Water Control Board. These regulations, he said, “require us to get rid of the salts in our water.”
“We have to,” he said emphatically. “Otherwise we face the similar situation that the city of Dixon faced, $10,000 a day fine if we don’t comply with the necessary requirements that have been laid down to us that grant of the permitting capacity to discharge our water into the environment.” He continued, “That’s just pure plain and simple facts.”
The most interesting portion of Stephen Souza’s comments were his acknowledgement that the public was not engaged on this.
“The community,” he said, “I believe the community still isn’t engaged in this. We have not made it to the point where we can make the connection between surface water and wastewater. We need to make that connection.”
Of course, Stephen Souza would be sure to direct the council to form a citizen advisory committee to study the project and engage the public on the need for surface water to meet current standards. He would also support a rate study.
The problem is that none of this happened in May of 2010 – it all happened after the September 6, 2011 vote, 16 months later. It only happened after the signature drive, that Mr. Souza overtly and actively tried to prevent from occurring, succeeded in putting the September 6 rates up to a vote.
It was only then that people began to acknowledge the mistakes.
Michael Harrington was defeated by either Stephen Souza or Don Saylor in 2004. That was over eight years ago. The city council during his tenure was already discussing the water project. Imagine what would have happened if the council at that time had started to ratchet up the water rates to absorb some of the blow?
Woodland, it turns out, had already had their version of the WAC and already had a rate study, but Stephen Souza and Don Saylor did not push for the same here in Davis.
Imagine if we had initiated those studies back in May of 2010, instead of the beginning of 2012?
Imagine if we had already come up with the possibility of a regional plan with West Sacramento, an alternative Davis-West Sacramento water option, and had a year and a half to study it?
In March of 2013 we will finally get our public vote. As I said earlier this week, in my calculations there is actually a fairly decent chance that this thing will not pass.
Even if the WAC and the council manage to fix the rate structure, the rate hikes alone are going to cause enough people to balk. If enough of the policy makers are on board with this move, then there will not be enough of a campaign to create the discontent necessary to defeat this.
Unfortunately, I do not see that scenario occurring. Because West Sacramento is not a serious option, and because some believe there are less than above-the-board reasons for West Sacramento not being seriously considered, a move to Woodland will trigger opposition and opposition will trigger the defeat of the ballot measure.
This was entirely predictable and it needs to be laid squarely at the feet of the previous councils. The council majority from 2006 to 2010 – Don Saylor, Stephen Souza and Ruth Asmundson – were content to ram this through and force future councils to deal with the tough issues.
The saddest part is that Stephen Souza knew this was a problem back in 2010. I even got up in front of council and warned them of this problem, but they did nothing. They were content to use their three votes to ram it through, and Don Saylor and Ruth Asmundson knew they did not have to deal with the consequences.
Stephen Souza did. And yet, he still did not move until it was almost too late. We will be paying for that mistake for decades. That is the legacy of that council.
People say they want to move on, but at the same time I hear apologetic comments from the head of the WAC who argues that there is no perfect answer. And she’s right. But I bet if we had another sixteen months, we could come up with a better one than we will in October.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Funny that you have no mention of Sue Greenwald in this article. Maybe she slipped down a memory hole that allows you to dismiss the impact her dogged opposition had in inhibiting actions by the council that she could bash from her bully pulpit on the council. As far back as when Steve was first on the council I remember Sue beating the drum of how expensive the wastewater and surface water projects were going to be. if you want to speculate on what went wrong you need to include a scenario where Sue accepted the water realities and worked to fund them over the long term instead of undermining them at every step of the way.
There is nothing odd about it. The council majority 3-2’d it through over her objections and Lamar’s.
Mr. Toad:
“if you want to speculate on
what went wrong you need to
include a scenario where Sue
accepted the water realities
and worked to fund them over
the long term instead of undermining
them at every step of the way.”
Seems like you love to attack Sue Greenwald and defend Souza and Saylor. But let’s play math. Is 3 > 1? If that’s true, isn’t the fault of three that things got messed up MORE than the problem of one?
Growth ussue:
“Seems like you love to attack Sue Greenwald and defend Souza and Saylor. But let’s play math. Is 3 > 1? If that’s true, isn’t the fault of three that things got messed up MORE than the problem of one?”
100% thumbs up on this post.
Don’t let Mike Harrington off the hook here. While on the City Council, he worked hard to limit rates so that only maintenance on the existing system could be done. He stressed at that time that he would not support any building of reserves or expense that would expand capacity and was quite proud of this at the time. He was all about stopping Covell Village or any other development and felt (still feels) that limiting water was key to limiting growth. We will now be paying dearly for this short-sighted and irresponsible action.
If that assessment is correct, his culpability ends over eight years ago. The people actually pushing through the project failed to plan for funding, outreach, and a rate structure.
What’s with the obsession of people blaming the minority for the majority’s decisions?
Good point Growth issue, it’s obviously Harrington and Greenwald’s fault for what the council majority passed on a 3-2 vote.
Ryan: Thanks for the praise. I still think we don’t need a surface project right now, and won’t for years. Even then, I doubt the need for it will exceed 5-6 mgd.
This JPA project is about funding political careers, upping the fiar market values of the lands that would get a guaranteed source of water for urban development, funding the JPA where it will become a money source for current retirees in this area, and funding outside consultants, contractors, private companies with bad track records such as Veolia Water or United Water.
This project was first conceived to supply water for the huge population increases projected/mandated in the 1989 General Plan, and the same people who voted for in back in those days are still around in positions of power, such as Lois Wolk in the State Sentate.
Again, thank you, Ryan, for the complements.
David M. Greenwald said . . .
[i]”There is nothing odd about it. The council majority 3-2’d it through over her objections and Lamar’s.”[/i]
I think you missed Toad’s point David. What I heard him saying was that by polarizing the Council through her remarks, Sue scuttled any collaborative effort (across voting lines) to begin raising CIP money through early rate hikes, thereby addressing the very issue that Sue was banging the drum about. Said another way, Sue had a demonstrable appreciation of the problem, but very little appreciation of solutions for softening the blow on the rate payers. That is what I heard Toad saying.
Sue’s focus was on reducing the cost of the projects, but in the spirit of your article, she too needs to be held to account for not seeing the wisdom of early rate increases that built up the reserve balances in the City’s water CIP fund. The ironic thing about all this is that the 2008 sewer rates were designed to accomplish just that, and as a result there is over $30 million of reserves built up at this time to pay for the $95 million wastewater treatment plant upgrade. Perhaps we all owe a vote of thanks to Greg Clumpner of Foresight Consulting, who helped the City with the 2008 sewer rate changes.
Growth issue said . . .
[i]”Seems like you love to attack Sue Greenwald and defend Souza and Saylor. But let’s play math. Is 3 > 1? If that’s true, isn’t the fault of three that things got messed up MORE than the problem of one?”[/i]
GI, Toad does love to excoriate Sue, but I don’t think he was defending Souza or Saylor at all. I read his point to be that there are plenty of dirty fingerprints to cover all four of the non-Heystek council members.
Matt: Perhaps, but do you think the three or the one bears more responsibility here?
Ryan: do you remember the movie from about 1986, The Field of Dreams? “If you build it, they will come”? Holly, Pam, Eileen, and many others stopped the gross overbuilding of the Mace Overcrossing, reducing the number of lanes and throttling back the amount of new urban sprawl that could be jammed unto the open fields south of the freeway.
Dick Livingston, Bill Kopper, Julie, Eileen, Pam, and many, many others successfully pushed through Measure E, which stopped the expansion of the Richards Subway undercrossing from 2 to NINE lanes. THis effectively shut down the sprawl developers’ options to get an EIR to pencil out for more development in South Davis. The expansion was pushed by the 3/2 vote by the CC to improve car access to the downtown from the freeway, but we all knew, and they knew, it was really all about punching through a large access into South Davis for urban development expansion, and to blow out Nishi and Olive Drive into massive new development.
Ryan, the water plant is political robbery of the rate payers, pure and simple. The proponents overreached last fall for those Sept 6 rates, and they are still greedy and still ready to rip off the poor, middle class, seniors, and others who stuggle to live and prosper in Davis. Those proponents are still trying to do it in the the face of the largest economic meltdown since my mother was born in 1932. Shame on them.
Our current rates are unconstitutional, and have been for many years.
We will see you, Ryan, and your friends at the ballot box and possibly in court if needed.
Neither David. Representing the citizens doesn’t start and stop when the words “Call the question” are uttered. We elect our representatives to be looking out for the best interests of the citizens, and in this cas only Lamar did the whole job. Sue gets credit for here dogged pursuit of cost containment on this issue, but unlike Lamar, she was blind to the revenue side of the picture, and in the process she missed an opportunity to reduce the bottom-line burden on rate payers.
In the end I see the failure of the Council to be a triumph of polarization and a failure of collaboration.
It is interesting to look back on June’s election and see that the voters appear to have felt that way too. I’m optimistic that this Council will not make the same mistake.
Matt: I don’t disagree to a point. But the first response was not that the council majority screwed up but rather why not caste a wider net of blame. The problem at this point is that our hands are largely tied because of the failure to plan properly with enough time to more carefully weigh our options.
And yes, i think there is a good chance that a flawed plan will be defeated in March and then we are in worse shape.
Matt: thoughtful comments.
Back in the 2000-04 time frame, I always told Jaques deBra and others (maybe even Alf …) that when they got to the building stage, they were going to have to ask for serious ratepayer money, and they had better put it on the ballot.
For years and years, the project proponents hit us with small rate increases via the Prop 218 process to pay for the planning and teeing up the ball to hit.
The entire strategy of Saylor, Souza, West Yost, deBra and the other project proponents was to ensure it never was put to a vote, for obvious reasons.
They dam__ near got it, too.
The 12 mgd is at least 2x too large, and the surplus water is for urban development around the borders of Davis for miles and miles.
[quote]We will see you, Ryan, and your friends at the ballot box and possibly in court if needed. [/quote]Ok… Mr H has made it clear… ‘let the people decide’… and if the results of the vote does not match his ‘world view’, SUE. Nice… two bites of the apple.
BTW my last post should not be construed as supporting or opposing the surface water project.
There are other constraints on future development within the Davis sphere of influence area… in rough order, sanitary sewer treatment plant capacity, the ability of the sanitary sewer collection system to convey flows to the plant (even if the plant was enlarged), flood plain and other storm water drainage systems, Measure J, and the CC’s opportunity to “just say no!” to any General Plan revisions to allow for additional growth.
Apparently, the opportunity to vote for CC members who commit to views held by some is not enough… there is always the lawsuit option if the vote doesn’t work out. As much as we should protect against “tyranny of the majority”, we should guard against the manipulation of systems by the minority.
[quote]Apparently, the opportunity to vote for CC members who commit to views held by some is not enough[b], nor, i additon, is the Measure J vote or a referendum process[/b][/quote]Apologies, got distracted, and missed adding the bolded text.
David, Mike was in the majority on the vote to limit spending to maintenance only. The City should have raised rates slightly above that and built reserves. Mike opposed doing that and thus is part of today’s problem. The fact that Councils after Mike lost re-election continued this “pay as you go” strategy doesn’t excuse Mike’s irresponsible and neurotic actions as a Council member regarding water issues. His twisting my comments so to be construed as complimentary of his actions is weird. We are faced with a huge financial catastrophe and he has played a role in creating it for us.
I do not allow for being on the losing end of 3-2 votes as absolving Council members of responsibility. They should have worked harder to focus on what was best for the community, not politics. I think the community finally elected a group of people who will do this. However, we still have failed politicians around playing the same old failed games.
Mr. Harrington, I’m curious about your statement that 12 mgd is twice as much as we need. Do you have some data to back up that assertion?
Hey, and let’s not forget the “BioLab” and the collaborative town/gown effort it took to defeat that terrible project endorsed by the Council and County majorities.
Nancy, thanks for the reminder. There was a 3/2 majority to endorse the biolab project until Sue and I (with a lot of help from Samantha, Don, and friends) worked to pack CC chambers with protesters for a number of meetings, and the real estate industry got involved because those local professionals knew that local property values would plumment if that lab got in.
The surface water project will not risk spreading Ebola through the Saturday Farmers Market like the Lab would have, but the water project is almost as bad for the community at the biolab. It will fiscally drain the town, hurt the poor and middle class, and forever set up the JPA and a political/consultant structure that has led to large amounts of corruption in other local jurisdictions. Look at how Saylor bled us out for the fire fighter unions in order to lock up their support for his political career? The water project is the same thing, for the local politicals who support it. Remember what the builders unions in Sacramento tried to do to Sue with the mailer? Once you let that crowd, the consultants, the politicos into a project like this, we will be stuck with more of the same for many years.
It disgusts me when I see the team of consultants, staff, and politicos all working together to rip off our town. Sorry, but I call them as I see them, and there is nothing nice or pretty or caring about what they have tried to do to all of the ratepayers, for the personal, political, and fiscal gain of the team supporting the JPA.
rdcanning: check out the data provided to the WAC.
Michael, I’ve looked closely at that data and drilled down into it at some length, and I don’t come to the same conclusion as you do. Can you elaborate on what data supports a 6 mgd plant and over what timeframe?
Ryan: you are supporting one of the biggest public frauds that has every occrred in Davis or Yolo County. We just have to agree to disagree, and wait to see how the ballot and possibly court judgments turn out.
The CC is completely complacent in this: they have not lifted one finger to learn how, exactly, we ended up with the fraudulent Sept 6th rate structure. Not one person has been publically disciplined or criticized for nearly taking this town over the fiscal cliff.
If we have to go to court over the rates, it’s all relevant to the discovery process, and the truth may yet come out.
If anyone is interested in this subject or wants to assist, including the rerendum process, rates, or the WAC, please email me at michael@mikeharringtonlaw.com.
Here is what was presented to the council by staff for the Sept. 6 vote:
[img]http://davismerchants.org/water/waterratesordinancesept6.png[/img]
[url]http://davismerchants.org/water/waterratesordinancesept6.png[/url]
Anyone who can read can see that there was a 14% option. The council chose to pass the staff option, which anyone who can read can see was ultimately more than a 14% option. Then there was an attempt to explain it as a 14% rate increase based on expected conservation behavior.
The staff did nothing wrong to merit “discipline” or even criticism. The council made the mistake.
“Seems like you love to attack Sue Greenwald and defend Souza and Saylor. But let’s play math. Is 3 > 1? If that’s true, isn’t the fault of three that things got messed up MORE than the problem of one?”
Actually i would rather not engage with this at all but David seems to want to dwell on old arguments. Since he presents a one sided view I offered another.
Politics is the art of the possible and in Davis, where the referendum is always a wild card, having a 3-2 majority is not a slam dunk irreversible win. With Sue waiting eagerly for any ammo she could use to undermine their efforts the majority was, if anything, too cautious. The simple majority argument suggests a naivete that i doubt David himself believes. City politics are more nuanced than simply needing 3 votes to make a majority suggests.
“Actually i would rather not engage with this at all but David seems to want to dwell on old arguments.”
Toad: It’s not old arguments so much as illustrating why our choices are very limited at this point.
“….and then we are in worse shape.”
What ever happened to Dixon when their voters rejected their rate increase?
Are they currently being “bled dry” by State-imposed penalties?
The future is definitely in flux. Governor Brown’s tax proposal will likely fail. Will the legislature then make draconian and devastating cuts?
Unlikely, they will most likely “revisit” and alter the automatic cuts that they passed. The CA economy will be limping along for the better part of the next decade and cities will need time to get their financial situation in better shape to meet the severe water quality standards that, IMO, will be put on hold before they are implemented under severe penalty. It makes no political sense to demand that these standards be met now when the cities do not have the money and meaningful State and Federal monies are not available at this time. If the Congressional House Majority remains Republican(likely), President Obama, likely reelected, will be stymied from getting programs that will change the Federal assistance to projects like the Davis Surface Water Project