In a very stacked agenda, one of the critical issues that the council is scheduled to take up are the options for putting a ballot measure on the November 2012 ballot.
The timeline would be to consider a draft ordinance as early as June 26 and approve the final ordinance language on July 10, the last regular meeting prior to the summer recess.
The Board of Supervisors, which has authority over placing items on the ballot, would need to act on August 7, with impartial analysis due by August 10 and the rebuttal argument due by August 20.
All of this would occur prior to August 21, 2012 when the Water Advisory Committee recommends the preferred Surface Water Project (should council grant the WAC their request). The water rate structure would be received by September 18 and the recommendations for the DBO process by October 2.
All of this would be held prior to the November 6 Election Day, the Prop 218 process would take place on November 20 and the rates would take effect February 1, 2013.
One might reasonably question the timing of the election and therefore the mandatory deadlines that follow as taking place before the WAC itself agrees on the preferred water project, rate structure, and Prop 218 process. However, given the scope of the initiative itself, the timing really matters very little.
According to a memo from the City Attorney Harriet Steiner and Kara Ueda, “Based on Council’s direction, we would bring back draft language at the meeting on June 26th and final language on July 10, at which time the Council would also call the election for November.”
The city attorney is proposing an initiative measure that “would bind the City. A proposed initiative would ask the voters to adopt an ordinance requiring the City of Davis to pursue surface water as its primary source of municipal water.”
Within the language of the initiative would include a statement on the surface water supply project: “The City of Davis shall take all steps necessary to pursue a surface water supply project, whether that project is as a participant in the Davis-Woodland Surface Water Supply Project or by receiving surface water from the City of West Sacramento.”
Second, about high demand times: “In enacting this ordinance, the City Council and the people of the City of Davis understand that the City will continue to use groundwater as necessary or convenient to the operation of the water system such as when demand for water cannot be met with the surface water supply, such as during the summer months.”
And on water rates, “Implementation of this Ordinance is contingent on increases in customer water rates. While the City is actively seeking ways to reduce the cost of providing surface water to City water customers, water rate increases are necessary to fund the project. Water rate changes will be proposed, considered and acted upon under the then current law in effect at the time the water rates are proposed.”
In other words, despite the initiative, a separate Prop 218 process would be required and if the city receives a majority number of protests, it would likely not be able to increase water rates in a manner sufficient to fund the project, therefore, “this Ordinance shall have no force or effect until the City Council is able to increase water rates sufficient to meet Project costs.”
The ordinance would make no statement with respect to timing and cost of the project. The council has a choice as to whether to require voter action to repeal the ordinance or allow the council to do so.
The ordinance could have a sunset date, though “We do not necessarily recommend that this measure have a definite sunset; if a surface water supply project moves forward, it presumably would provide surface water to the City for many years. The sunsetting of the ordinance would likely not have an effect on the City’s water supply source once the source changes.”
As we noted before, the initiative would not address water rates, as the city attorney explained, “We did not include a ratification of the increased water rates in the proposed measure because Proposition 218 does not include a provision authorizing voter approval of water rates. We believe that regardless of the outcome of a vote on this Project, rates must be considered under the Proposition 218 notice, public hearing and protest requirements.”
In the language of the proposed initiative it becomes more clear as to why the council could move forward with the ballot initiative without having the final recommendations from the WAC.
The initiative language itself is silent as to the source of the surface water and, in fact, allows for multiple options when it writes, “whether that project is as a participant in the Davis-Woodland Surface Water Supply Project or by receiving surface water from the City of West Sacramento.”
In other words, the initiative only authorizes the city to acquire and use surface water, and build a project that does so. It does not determine which project or how much it will cost, or what the rates will be.
As Matt Williams noted in his May 11 article in the Vanguard, the WAC unanimously, by a 10-0 vote, supported conjunctive use and thus the water supply project.
The motion read at that time: “The Water Advisory Committee (WAC) supports a project that involves conjunctive use under the provision that the WAC still needs to address the issues of 1) when the project should be implemented [e.g. immediately, in 5 to 10 years, in 20 to 30 years, etc.], 2) the size, cost and financing of the project, and 3] the source of treated surface water [e.g. Woodland/Davis JPA, West Sacramento, or other source]. In addition, in further deliberation, the WAC may identify other issues.”
Importantly, support for the project included skeptics such as Mark Siegler, Bill Kopper and Frank Loge.
“What does that mean?” Matt Williams asked rhetorically. “It means that the WAC has A) fully endorsed having a dual source system containing both surface water and groundwater, and B) completely removed from consideration sole reliance on groundwater as the long range water supply for the City.”
That is the only decision that the WAC has ultimately weighed in on and the only real question in the ballot initiative. The question as to whether the source is Woodland or West Sacramento, and the rates, will be addressed separately and concurrently.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
