There was a critical moment in the city council meeting on Tuesday night when Councilmember Rochelle Swanson, wrestling with the issue of the rate model, asked WAC Chair Elaine Roberts-Musser a simple question – whether the information they were receiving differed significantly from the information the WAC had received the night when they made their decision to recommend the Loge-Williams rate structure.
Now, Elaine Roberts-Musser is the chair of the WAC, but on this issue, she clearly does not speak for the committee. She was one of two members to vote against Loge-Williams the first time. She spoke against it as an individual on Tuesday night. And she is the only member of the WAC to vote against Loge-Williams both times.
The question is, which hat would Elaine Roberts Musser wear at this moment – would she represent the WAC and their 8-2 vote or her own dissenting opinion?
She introduced herself as Elaine Roberts-Musser, Chair of the Water Advisory Committee, and did not qualify that she was speaking for herself – therefore her comments were given the weight of being the chair of the WAC. And yet, her response was her own personal opinion.
“I feel like it’s evolving as we’re sitting here speaking,” she said. “That’s what I feel like. These figures in this table, we didn’t have. You’re having the city manager explain and then you’re having Matt [Williams] re-explain. How are you going to explain this to the public?”
Councilmember Swanson asked Ms. Roberts-Musser what she thought the WAC would do, taking a second look at the model.
We now have the advantage of hindsight there, as even in the face of council direction to look at Bartle Wells, the WAC held fast on a 6-3 vote, with the chair once again dissenting.
“This is brand new information that the WAC has not seen,” Ms. Roberts-Musser said. “I feel as your listening, this rate structure is evolving. It is evolving as we’re sitting here. So how can you possibly… decide or predict or whatever, because at some point, you have to fish or cut bait.”
“This is the complication with the public – how is the public perceiving this?”
Rochelle Swanson responded, “Well said, which is I think the concern we’re having.”
However, city staff, now in an awkward position, had to refute the chair of the WAC. Both Harriet Steiner, the city attorney, and Principal Engineer Dianna Jensen corrected the record as to what was new – which were not the rates but simply the city’s ability to generate a rate comparison and the fact that the structure has been in place for some time.
City Attorney Harriet Steiner told Councilmember Swanson that the schedule caused the proposal to come forward in a more iterative way than perhaps they would have liked. But she said, “I think this rate schedule, the CBFR rate schedule, has been to my way of thinking, the same structure since a couple of weeks ago when I went to the WAC… I think that the rate structure did evolve, but I think it’s been stable for quite some time now.”
What the WAC hadn’t seen, Ms. Steiner argued, was the actual numbers. Staff knew those numbers for each of the rate categories would not be there until this week because they had to be generated by Bartle Wells.
“So there is definitely more information available, but as far as the stability of the different rate structures I believe they’ve all been the same,” she said, noting that their explanations have evolved and improved over time, but the structure has been the same.
Rochelle Swanson did allow that she found the rate comparisons that were generated very compelling on the fairness issue, but asked the chair if they would have enough on Thursday.
“I wish I could say, I really don’t,” she said. “I can tell you how I feel, but that’s not necessarily how the rest of the WAC feels.”
So here she did attempt to differentiate her own feelings, but continued, “I feel like a lot of this information is brand new. We did not see it at the time.”
“There’s new information coming in all of the time,” she said. “How the WAC would view that, I honestly don’t know.”
It is unclear what her point is here. The WAC voted 8-2 to go forward with the rate structure. The new information is largely a comparison chart of the numbers that shows very definitively that the Loge-Williams model is more fair than the Bartle Wells model, so how could she not have known how they would respond?
Dianna Jensen, Principal Civil Engineer in the City’s Water Division, added to the explanation as to why this looked slightly different, “The reason is that we really put the work on Matt [Williams] to produce what his rate structure was going to look like.”
They did not want to expend city resources until the WAC gave them the go-ahead to explore the Loge-Williams rate as the preferred model.
“Once the WAC did vote for the CBFR, we then directed our rate consultant to work more closely,” she said. Their rate consultant then spent the last two weeks making sure that the rate structure would really work for the city. “So the reason the numbers are different is because of that iterative process because he is really focused on it.”
What emerges then is a process by which the rate structure was floated by Frank Loge and Matt Williams. The city decided not to expend resources on it for good reason until the WAC decided it was their preference and once that occurred, Doug Dove worked on the Loge-Williams model and was able to produce the rate comparisons – the only really new piece of information.
This is not indicative of a confused process, as implied by the chair, it is rather a natural progression. And rather than adding to the confusion, the rate comparison simply clarified the fact that the Loge-Williams model was superior in most respects to the Bartle Wells model.
As Ms. Jensen pointed out, “The actual structure has stayed the same. We hadn’t had time to do the bill comparison that you see now.”
Mayor Joe Krovoza praised Councilmember Brett Lee for requesting the information that broke down the rates into these percentile categories which illustrates how the structure works by usage category.
“The Public can look at these and see how these rates stack up for them,” the mayor said.
At no point did Ms. Musser explain to the council that she was actually one of only two members to vote against the rate structure in that 8-2 vote, or suggest that perhaps another member, such as Matt Williams, could better represent the views of the WAC on this particular issue.
It is very clear, watching Councilmember Rochelle Swanson, that this played into her concerns about the confusion that the voters might face, and there was no reason for that to have occurred.
The view of Elaine Roberts-Musser is a bit difficult to understand anyway. She has consistently expressed concern about how the public will perceive the rate structure and the confusion it might cause, but she has never answered the question as to how they will view the chart provided on Tuesday that shows how disadvantaged the typical voter will be under Bartle Wells as opposed to Loge-Williams. In her words, “How are you going to explain [THAT] to the public?”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
dear vanguard readers,
in the story that followed the vote 8-2 in favor of the woodland option, the vanguard’s immediate follow up left out the vote was 8-2. that speaks louder than anything else on whether to trust the vanguard as a source of legitimate information. leaving out the most important detail of the most important issue facing davis speaks volumes.
trashing elaine because she does not agree to go along with CBFR speaks to the vanguard’s character.
I don’t plan to post here ever again.
“I don’t plan to post here ever again.”
some good news today then.
i don’t think elaine was trashed here. she was criticized because she forgot her role was as spokesperson for the wac, not her personal views. to me, the numbers clinched the deal, they didn’t confuse the deal.
[img]http://thomasajohnston.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/boypouting.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.sugarwillaandspice.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Take_my_ball_and_go_home.jpg[/img]
As chair of the Woodland advisory committee, I have a unique understanding of how difficult the job of WAC chair is. While I don’t know any of the Davis WAC members, I have watched or attended many of their meetings. Davis residents should be appreciative of the role Elaine has played in guiding the committee through very difficult discussions.
perhaps but we are not appreciative of her efforts to thwart the will of the majority on the WAC both at the council meeting and at the last WAC meeting.
I second Christine’s sentiments. No one is perfect, and even if she possibly misstepped on Tuesday, that doesn’t in any way compare to all the outstanding, often very difficult, moments throughout the many meetings where Elaine’s leadership was both deft and steady.
For the record, I heard and saw Elaine’s testimony on Tuesday, and I felt she walked the line quite well given the circumstances. I hope I do as well when confronted with the same kind of circumstances. That is why I said “possibly misstepped” above.
JMHO
Growth Issue, I do not feel Elaine was trying to thwart the will of the majority of the WAC. What I saw was a person doing her best to answer the questions that were asked.
I know that when I walked into the WAC meeting Thursday night I didn’t know what was going to happen. If I couldn’t know myself, I find it hard to believe that Elaine could know. That is what she told the Council two nights before.
I haven’t seen the meeting video, but based on what is presented here it sounds as though Elaine did, in fact, distinguish her personal views vs. speaking or answering questions in her role as chair. The CC members are fully aware of how she voted on the rates. I think the main point of this editorial is misplaced. The point should be that the chair of the WAC and certain council members are concerned about how easily the different rate proposals will be understood by the public.
Unfortunately, given the long history of the Vanguard in criticizing Elaine directly and personally, this editorial just seems like piling on without foundation.
Given all of Bob Dunning’s gallon of gasoline references, loss of Octane seems to be a logical outgrowth of this water process.
Abandoning the traditional concept of fixed costs which are, for the most part, independent of water use and then,as an additional “poke in the eye”, tying them to peak summer use based upon home-owner water-use decisions(landscape irrigation and other water -use features) made while the voters were deliberately “kept in the dark” for the past decade by the Saylor Council keeping the project under the political radar and the continuing tiers (double dipping into the water conservation concept trough?) that most voters will now consider unnecessary to encourage conservation given the new high rates, all are serious impediments to getting the approval of a majority of home-owners.
davisite, the WAC recommended rate structure doesn’t abandon fixed costs, it embraces them.
In a traditional rate structure there are two components, fixed fees and variable fees, and that presents challenges in transparently providing each and every rate payer the answers to two questions:
“How much am I paying?” and “What am I paying for?”
Answering, “How much am I paying?” is straightforward, but answering “What am I paying for?” is impossible in a traditional rate structure because capital infrastructure costs (like the $113 million for the surface water plant) are non-transparently subdivided and allocated to both the Fixed charge and the Variable charge.
In the WAC recommended rate structure those capital infrastructure costs are transparently converted to a rate payer specific “Supply” charge. The Supply charge contains the fixed costs covering each rate payer’s share of infrastructure capital expenditure.
If you believe that the voters were deliberately “kept in the dark” for the past decade by the Saylor Council, then you should embrace the WAC proposed rate structure as a meaningful, permanent vehicle for transparently keeping the voters out in the light.
[i]So in a nutshell, the WAC recommended Distribution-Supply-Use rate structure has three components:
• A Community Service charge: think of this as distribution infrastructure costs for services like Fire Department emergencies that are rarely utilized, but are nevertheless necessary. None of us want to have a fire, but we want lots of water to be available at the fire hydrants if we do.
• A Supply charge: think of this as the fixed cost covering your share of the water supply infrastructure capital expenditure needed to provide reliable water pressure during the periods of peak load on the system. This portion is based on based on the peak load you place on the system. The default calculation for this uses your prior year’s peak period usage (May through October); however, some customers may choose to replace the default ccf volume with a “subscription” volume of their choice, and agree to have a reconciliation done at the end of October to calculate a “true-up” settlement to be sure that everyone is paying fairly for their contribution to the supply infrastructure construction costs.
• A Use charge: think of this as the variable cost for the actual amount of water you use each month.[/i]
Elaine was invited several times to come down to the podium, as Chair. They did not ask for her personal views, and she did not limit her comments to personal views.
I heard what she said, and David, I know you think Elaine’s comments may have swayed Rochelle. I don’t think so: Dan nearly certainly had his three votes going into that meeting.
I was glad to hear the CC debate that was set up because Brett and Joe had different ideas, and the WAC debate two nights later. This Tuesday’s CC meeting should be equally dramatic. I urge everyone to come down or watch it live.