A day after the judge denied their legal challenge to the water rates, backers of a water initiative that would roll back the water rates turned in over 2243 signatures on Thursday to the Davis City Clerk’s office. The initiative seeks to invalidate water rates that were set during the joint Measure I – Prop 218 process in the spring of 2013.
The initiative letter signed by Pam Nieberg and Ernie Head notes, “The people of the City of Davis desire to establish reasonable water rates that accurately represent the cost of providing water services to residents and business. By approving this initiative, voters will repeal the confusing, unfair and onerous CBFR rates that the City Council deliberately kept away from the voters by excluding these rates from the March 5, 2013 ballot with the surface water project.”
While the city attorney Harriet Steiner would not comment and City Clerk Zoe Mirabile very carefully cited election code, Ms. Mirabile believes that because this is the repeal of a Prop 218 vote, the signature threshold is 5% of the voters in the last Gubernatorial Election in Davis which places the signature requirement at 1160.
The petitioners have nearly twice that figure. In addition, Ms. Mirabile cited election code sections 9214 and 9215 in terms of the requirements by the Davis City Council.
The Davis City Council is required to either “Adopt the ordinance, without alteration, at the regular meeting at which the certification of the petition is presented,” “immediately order a special election” or “submit the ordinance, without alternation to the voters” or “Order a report pursuant to Section 9212 at the regular meeting at which the certification of the petition is presented. When the report is presented to the legislative body, the legislative body shall either adopt the ordinance within 10 days or order an election pursuant to subdivision.”
While Ms. Mirabile could not rule out an election in June, she deemed it “a stretch.” The signatures go to the county who validates them. Freddie Oakley told the Vanguard on Wednesday she believes her office can offer a two-day turnaround time.
However, the next city council meeting’s agenda will have gone out by that time and it does not seem likely that the council would have a special meeting in time to perform the remaining necessary steps in time for a February 11 deadline for putting it on the June ballot.
A special election would require the petitioners to fund it, and even an all-mail ballot would be tens of thousands of dollars.
“I did this because of the unfairness of the water prices that are going to be facing us in the future,” said Ernie Head, who spearheaded and financed the effort during a brief press conference outside of City Hall. “It will be at least three times, probably even more (the current cost). That’s a terrible waste of money.”
“The amount of water, approximately 12 million gallons (per day) will be pumped into Davis, less than one percent of that will be used for drinking,” he added. “That in my book is real waste of money.”
“My biggest reason why I’m here and I circulated the petitions is there are thousands of water districts throughout this country, yet the city of Davis came up with this ‘ingenious’ consumption based fixed rate pricing scheme that is unique in the entire country and world,” said Danyal Kasapligil. “With this pricing scheme, even if we all theoretically used the same amount of water, we would all be paying different amounts for the water that we use.”
“How fair is that and why do we need to reinvent the wheel when we can use a water pricing scheme, a tiered price structure that many other municipalities use,” he said. “Why do have to reinvent the wheel?”
Nancy Price added, “All across this country, local community groups and citizen activists are challenging the privatization of water which can be and is in this situation the operation and management of a public utility for private profit, and are challenging that kind of outsourcing of a public service and are also challenging the rising costs of water rates related to that service.”
“I think it’s really important that we join our colleagues across the country, we’re really fighting for safe affordable sufficient water provided by a public utility,” she stated.
“I’m a great believer in direct democracy,” stated Michael Harrington, a former Davis City Councilmember who was co-counsel on the legal challenge. “We started this water referendum together as a team in August 2011.”
“What we wanted was the rates on the ballot so that the voters could decide whether they wanted to pay those rates, that amount of money, or not. The council ended up putting the project on the ballot although it was ill-defined based on somewhat flawed information data,” he said. “But they put the project on the ballot but they didn’t put the rates on the ballot.”
“We want the people of Davis to be able to vote as to whether or not they think these rates are fair and appropriate,” he continued.
Mr. Harrington also commented on the ruling that came out on Wednesday, stating, “Judge Maguire conducted a very thorough trial, he’s issued his tentative decision. The legal team is working with the city and the court on getting a final decision.”
However, he said that politically, it is very important that “the voters in Davis get to vote on these rates. That’s why I’m here today.”
Mayor Joe Krovoza reiterated his view that the court’s ruling on Wednesday was thorough and reaffirmed the diligence of Judge Maguire.
“I don’t think there’s a basis for the citizens of Davis to request a redo,” he said.
On Wednesday following the judicial decision, Mayor Krovoza stated, “The court’s decision affirms our careful work. This means our joint project with Woodland will proceed to bring Davis a clean, environmentally sound, and fiscally responsible long-term surface water supply. “
“As we find ourselves in a significant drought, Davis’ ratepayers should be pleased that they acted to increase their water supply options. When the project comes online in mid-2016, we will have the ability to use surface water that can be supplemented by groundwater. That will be a great asset for our system’s reliability,” he continued.
“Our ratepayers should also know that we continue to make great strides in project cost reduction. That has been job-one since Measure I passed last March. Since 2009, project costs have come down a full 35 percent through downsizing and our bidding process. And there are still prospects for more savings through lower interest financing,” the mayor added.
There are considerable questions as to what this initiative would do at this point. The city would have the option of simply approving new rates, even if these rates are appealed. It remains unsettled and perhaps to be decided by the courts whether the failure to pass the water rates violates the “subject to” clause in Measure I and could stop the entire project.
The city of Davis may well continue to take out bonds and borrow at increased interest rates, even without new water rates in place.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Now get verifying those signatures so we can get this on the June ballot.
Aren’t these people eligible for senior discounts on their water bills?
No such thing.
You’re right. Its a low income program i was thinking of. I guess some of them might not qualify.
And even if they do, it’s a tiny amount of money available for a very small number of people.
Its a weird coalition of those that don’t want to pay and those that don’t want to grow. Where are those that can’t afford to pay?
Upper middle class people who don’t want to pay more to irrigate their yards, landlords that don’t want payments for utilities to cut into their profits or put limits on what they can charge for rents, and “tea party” conservatives that distrust government in any form and failed politicians who now oppose representative government. Very weird coalition.
The petition wants a vote on the CFRB rates, but the arguments that they are putting forward, except for Ernie Head who seems to know what the petition states, are all over the place.
Expect a very muddied campaign, full of misconceptions and falsehoods.
a few things… one, everyone is hurting financially these days – middle class and working class alike
why do you preclude the possibility that they believe that this harms the poor and that that is cause enough?
for someone who rather mercilessly attacks certain individuals it seems you might be the last one to impugn the motives of others and warn of a muddled campaign. the issues seem pretty clear cut here. why does it bother you so much to see people speak out?
Here I am agreeing with DP for maybe the third time ever. LOL So in the future everytime I see liberals complaining or acting to bring the costs down for the poor I can assume it’s for personal greedy reasons on their part?
How will reverting to the current tiered rates help the poor? Low users will fair better under the CFRB per the Vanguard and the petition states that the new system unfairly makes users who use a lot of water to irrigate their yards pay more. Poor, who generally live in multi-family housing would not have that as an issue, don’t you think?
The low-income user, who typically uses 5 CCF or less, will see their rates go from around $30 per month to $50 per month in year 5. It is the large users who do not want to change their water use habits that are having a problem with the rates.
reverting to the current tiered rates mean the rates are not increasing three-fold.
We have to pay for the Water project, which voters approved. The petition is just saying that the CFRB rates are unfair and the rates need to be designed differently. Ernie was quoted that the existing model of set tiered rates was the way to go. So, unless the petitioners have a suggestion that they think would be fair, we really are voting on whether we accept the CFRB rates or go back to set tiered rates.
However, as a low water user, I don’t want to pay more per gallon of water, just so the system is built large enough to accomodate the high water users.
we only have a water project “subject to” approval of rates, the city best not look past that language or i’m sure mr. harrington will file an injunction.
Ah, I see. So that’s the strategy. Stop any approval of the rates and stop the Measure, which was approved by the voters by the way, from being implemented. These people are no better than the obstructionists in Congress.
Adding to the weirdness of the coalition is one person who is opposed because the system will not be operated by a government agency while another believes that for profit corporations are much more efficient than government at providing services.
Here’s the verbiage from the initiative that was filed with the City Clerk on July 22, 2013:
Notice of Intent to Circulate Petition
Notice is hereby given by the persons whose names appear hereon of their intention to circulate the petition within the City of Davis for the purpose of reducing water rates. A statement of the reasons of the proposed action as contemplated in the petition is as follows:
A. The City Council of the City of Davis has approved substantially increased new rates charged for water use.
B. New rates approved by the City Council this year increase annually for the next five years.
C. After the five year increase, the water bill paid by a typical, single-family residential customer (including new base rates and consumption fees) will have at least tripled.
D. The new, confusing Consumption Based Fixed Rate (CBFR) fee included in the new rates would base each rate payer’s monthly (January through December) water rates on the amount of water used during the 6-month peak consumption period (May through October) of the previous year. The resulting CBFR supply fee would significantly affect a typical water bill. One example is that Davis has an unusually high residential “household move rate” per year, and the CBFR system would unfairly charge residents who recently moved into a home or apartment with last year’s occupants’ water consumption habits. This would: reduce current year conservation savings (why conserve now, when the rate payer is negatively impacted with last year’s households’ conduct); transfer a higher proportion of overall system costs to residential users with landscape irrigation needs; and penalize water use required during dry, hot summer months.
E. Such a large and rapid increase in water rates would have adverse financial effects on the City, schools, businesses, and individuals.
F. City assumptions used to set new rates did not account for large users leaving the City water system or greatly reducing system use. Several such efforts are now in the planning stage. The resulting smaller volume of water delivery would require additional rate increases to regain revenue from a reduced volume of water sold, because the new surface water project has very large fixed costs and borrowing that has to be paid back no matter if water demand plummets due to conservation caused by the new rates.
G. Voters have not been given the opportunity at a regular, direct election to approve recent water rate increases, despite the voters’ clear statement in the successful Fall 2011 water rates referendum that the voters desired to repeal or vote upon such large increases.
H. The people of the City of Davis desire to establish reasonable water rates that accurately represent the cost of providing water services to residents and businesses. By approving this initiative, voters will repeal the confusing, unfair and onerous water rates that the City Council deliberately kept away from the voters by excluding these rates from the March 5, 2013 ballot with the surface water project.
Ernest Head Pamela S. Nieberg
Looks more like a ‘manifesto’ than good policy.
Ryan wrote: “The petition wants a vote on the CFRB rates, but the arguments that they are putting forward, except for Ernie Head who seems to know what the petition states, are all over the place. Expect a very muddied campaign, full of misconceptions and falsehoods.”
Ryan, I think the verbiage from the Petition itself is clear and to the point. You might disagree with those comments and arguments, but that is your right. You can vote no. You can campaign against it. But don’t say our Petition is unclear and muddled. It is not.
It is not the petition that is muddled. It is the comments from the petitioners. Only Ernie’s quote was directly related to the rates — whether they were fair or not. The other quoted comments made by the petitioners regarding privatization of public utilities, direct democracy, etc. are not issues in the petition.
So the measure overturns the rates if approved. Then the City Council establishes new rates, which are subject to a Prop 218 vote. And that’s it?
that’s where their second initiative comes in that requires a measure j style vote on all public utility rates.
Don: depends on the rates they approve. There may be an organized protest; there may be a referendum; there may be an initiative. It’s really up to the City to engage with us and the ratepayers. I really have a lot of paying legal work in the office I would rather work on, but I got into this mess in August 2011 at the request of business leaders in town, and I will finish it to the best of my ability. So far, we have saved the City ratepayers over $135 million dollars, and I believe there is still more to be saved.
I think that Michael’s response to Don is as clear and unambiguous as it comes. What is being said is that we either get exactly what we want from the city or we will tie the city up indefinitely with legal manipulation until we do get our way. I find it a shame that a small group is able to hold the entire community hostage to their narrow definition of the word “fair”, extolling themselves as champions of the poor while costing the community significantly in legal expenditures and time that could be better directed.
i have a different view of course. i thought they had a legitimate case that was presented to judge maguire, it think it was a close call but he sided with case law and an appellate court may end up looking at it.
judge maguire in doing so argued that this was a matter of policy, a question of fairness that rested not in the legal realm but in the political realm.
therefore, at least to me, it seems that this is the appropriate course of action.
Problem is that although the exact rates were not on the ballot the voters knew they were voting for higher rates so the political question has also been settled. My guess is this vote will end up with the same vote as the first. But alas, we will see when the next vote happens.
I disagree, the voters only knew what they were voting on in terms of rates if the rates that were proposed at the time, end up being the final rates. If not, then you run into a problem with that argument.
Mr. Greenwald, that argument of yours dances on the head of a pin.
It wasn’t meant to be an argument so much as an assertion that the matter is not exactly settled and we may well see a court have to rule on it.
That is complete B.S. The rates that were known were the maximum rates that would would be allowed. The voters knew that information and voted yes. The only change from that information was for the rates to be lower than proposed. Your contention is complete hogwash.
Mr. Toad, I think this second vote will be 60-40, which of course is a much sounder trouncing of the No On Measure I coalition. For them it will be eight points to the bad in the first vote and a minimum of twenty points to the bad in this second vote.
I’m not a pollster so i don’t like to predict but the picture looks like its the same old people that opposed Measure I and filed the lawsuit. It seems to be a small cadre of diehards that got fewer signatures this time than last although this time they did it without paying. Still they had much more time to collect them this time as well.
There is always the chance they will prevail but I can’t imagine that voter fatigue won’t set in and people are going to reject this vote to defeat the system just like the last one. Even if they win, the City will just start the process over, even if it means another vote to address the technical issues raised about the “subject to” wording.
I’m left to wonder if it will ever end, although if the opponents to the project are soundly defeated again perhaps that will end this madness.
That is a very good summary Mr. Toad. My prediction is votes approving the initiative = 40% (or less) and votes rejecting the initiative = 60% (or more). Voter fatigue will be a significant influence on the outcome.
“…..and it does not seem likely that the council”…..”
We will see if the 2 members competing for the Davis vote for Assembly and the member who is running for reelection to the Council vote to deny their constituents to vote and directly weigh in on this issue. A clear antii-populist position may well be the defining vote that determines their immediate political futures.