COMMENTARY – Back on November 15, the Water Advisory Committee debated for three hours attempting to decide the appropriate water rate format, and ultimately by an 8-2 vote, they agreed to support the Loge-Williams model.
The question is why were their backs seemingly to the wall on this? Tonight’s discussion on water has no action by the council on Loge-Williams. They will only be asked to approve the rate-sharing agreement and review the ballot language drafted on November 13.
What was the rush for the WAC to approve the rate structure on November 15? On December 13, the WAC will finalize their recommendations on the water rates, and not until January 15 (two full months after the WAC vote) will the City Council even receive the WAC recommendations on rate structure.
One of the perplexing things about this proposed timeline is that when the council gets the Loge-Williams rate structure, they have to approve language for the Prop 218 notice on water rates that will be mailed out to utility users a week later.
That does not give the council a lot of time to consider highly complex water rates. Given the fact that the WAC has already voted 8-2 on their recommendation, it does not make much sense to wait a full two months and leave the council only a week to consider and craft the Prop 218 language.
There have been points in time when the timeline has been extremely compressed by necessity – but this is self-inflicted and preventable.
Aside from the cost-sharing agreement, the rate structure is probably the most important piece of the puzzle that is still in the balance.
Moreover, the timeline of the approval of the rate structure to be sent to ratepayers via a Prop 218 precludes the rate structure itself being placed on the ballot.
Indeed, there will be perhaps six or seven weeks between the time these rates are finalized and the time when the final ballots must be turned in on March 5. But that means that people will be casting their votes potentially only a few weeks after all of this is finalized.
Given the timeline, we assume the campaign will begin in earnest the first week of January – but that is two weeks before the water rate structure is even finalized.
None of this makes any sense. Not at a practical level. Not at a policy level. Not a political level. There appears to be no reason to delay this final determination.
It is not like the rate structure is a slam dunk – we have heard real concerns in the past week and a half from councilmembers about it.
Legal counsel has made their claim – once again that the water rates as presented through the Prop 218 process cannot be placed on the ballot. Council has chosen to follow that legal advice, even though, as City Attorney Harriet Steiner noted last fall, there is no legal precedent or case law that clarifies this point – at this time, it is merely a matter of her legal opinion.
The ballot language currently asks the voters to authorize the City of Davis to proceed with the water project “subject to the adoption of water rates in accordance with the California Constitution,” i.e. Proposition 218.
While we somewhat understand the rationale behind that advice, we think that it creates undue burdens, both for the council and the voters.
The voters are in the position of approving a water project for which rates have yet to be formally approved and will not be approved for nearly another month after the election.
Moreover, while we may understand that legal counsel considers the Prop 218 process to be separate and distinct from the rate setting process, not placing the rate structure on the ballot seems problematic. There is a distinction between the rates and the rate structure and it seems that rate structure should be codified through ballot initiative and approval by the voters.
Finally, we are left with a good deal of uncertainty with regard to another point – what happens if the Prop 218 fails and the ballot initiative passes? We think that combination is unlikely. But what if it happens?
The council could then put new rates on a Prop 218 vote – since the ballot language only suggests that the approval is “subject to the adoption of water rates” and as it does not specify a time, it seems you could have more than one Prop 218 vote for the same ballot measure.
That also creates the potential for having a new water rate structure with the new Prop 218 vote and therefore the voters who approved the ballot initiative would not have gotten to consider it when casting their votes.
There are a lot of people who are not eligible to participate in the Prop 218 process who will be eligible to vote.
It is a strange set up and it is asking for political problems, if nothing else.
Council is out of time now to fix the ballot language, but they should at least move up the timetable for consideration of the rate structure and Prop 218 process.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
The timing is all deliberate and all political, and keeps even the rate structure out of the voting process.
It’s the same mentality that was behind the Sept 6, 2011 CC vote 4/1 to raise the rates that no one understood or could justify. The mindset was to keep it away from the voters … “this is a technical matter that the voters cannot possibly understand.”
Same deal now, but even more cynical. The CC FORCED the WAC into making the rate structure decision two weeks ago. I remember the Chair saying they had to make it THAT NIGHT because the CC had to make a decision at their next meeting, Nov. 27.
Well, I read the CC agenda this weekend and guess what? They pushed it back until the eve of the election. There was no reason to do it, other than to spring the rate system structure on the public at the last moment. In other words, the JPA proponents think they can dump money and PR into the campaign at the last moment faster than the project opponents can.
Whatever … the project is too big, too soon, and too expensive. They have bad facts and bad policy, and the public will sort it out.
How interesting … silence. Not a word from the pro-JPA’rs. So either they are ashamed of their CC majority and staff, or they condone it. Same as many of them condoned what the 4/1 CC tried to do on Sept 6th.
Or, everyone is too busy to read the DV so early. Rare, but not unheard of.
Which is it?
It’s all starting to look like smoke and mirrors again. The rate structure sunk the last water project and unless they put the new rates forward for a community wide vote it will sink again.
michael: you are repeating yourself over and over again. not sure why you expect a different response.
Doesn’t just one of you pro-project people have a sense of fair process about this, or is it just “win at all costs” is the acceptable public process for our city government to follow?
Don’t you stop sometime and think “oh, they are really doing something sneaky with the water project and its rates and manipulating the voting public, again; maybe our city government can try the same to me on the other issue that I know the city staff disagree with me on.”
has it occurred to you that you’ve become the boy who cried wolf? you don’t respond to direct questions and yet you think somehow we’re going to jump when you say how high?
Growth: you’ve missed the point entirely. And the referendum has saved the city well over $50 million so far … and counting. Do you think Woodland gave us an inch with those shared costs because Dan and Rochelle are nice people and asked politely? Not a chance. That deal was done because Woodland knows there is a ratepayers group here that is looking at what is going on, and is not afraid to step in and act politically when injustices and bad deals are being foisted onto our poor and middle class ratepayers who cannot afford the Saylor-Souza bad deals that are still in place and about to be implemented by a Davis CC majority, if not all five of them.
i fear you are injecting your ego where it doesn’t belong.
i think woodland made the agreement at the point at which the city had committed to the woodland project knowing that the city of davis would bolt from that commitment without a cost-sharing agreement. woodland calculated that it would cost more to go alone than agree to cost sharing. i don’t believe that the referendum group had anything to do with that consideration.
i would add, you may have saved the city money but you also don’t know when to say when. the time has past. you’re not adding anything to the [s]debate[/s] discussion at this point.
Growth: Like: why aren’t the rates on the ballot, or at least the rate system?
MH: “[i]Don’t you stop sometime and think “oh, they are really doing something sneaky with the water project and its rates and manipulating the voting public, again[/i]”
Yes Michael, I think that about you every time you open your mouth, or in this case, use your keyboard. Maybe if you had some credibility I would listen to what you have to say, but so far all I have seen from you is misinformation, personal attacks, and a whole lot of ego. All you have done to date is block and that is not leadership. Fortunately we have civic leaders who know the difference between taking responsibility and being a gadfly.
HELLO……………
Because of Mike Harrington and the referendum the City and we as taxpayers have saved over $50 million.
And Mike will never let us forget it. He needs to be the most important person in the room.
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biddlin
10/06/11 – 09:22 AM
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The most expensive components of this project could be the egos !
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Interesting…. The personal attacks and weak attempts at sarcasm rather than taking issue with the Council deliberately attempting to deny the voters any REAL say on this project speaks volumes about the validity of Michael Harrington’s analysis. It will also be interesting to see if Councilperson Lee offers any vigorous public opposition to this continuing strategy to deny the voters any meaningful opportunity to vote on this project since this was the signature issue in his very recent campaign for his Council seat.
Any savings found through the process are due to the work of the WAC and the CC members who appointed them, and now follow up on their recommendations. MH is just a blocker and has offered nothing positive to the process.
The reduction in cost derives from the WAC recommendation to go to conjunctive use instead of full surface-water use, enabling the project to be scaled back. The tradeoff is a reduction in quality and continued reliance on the ground water, but the experts that testified consider this the best compromise in order to minimize costs.
Mike Harrington attacked the WAC from the moment it was appointed: the makeup, the members, the councilmembers that appointed them, and most especially the Chair. Over and over. He attacked the staff that provides technical support. He has attacked the process, the individuals, and the results. So for him to take credit for any savings that resulted from the WAC deliberations and recommendations is the height of [i]chutzpah[/i].
“The reduction in cost derives from the WAC recommendation to go to conjunctive use instead of full surface-water use”
i don’t think you are accurate here. this was always a conjunctive use project in the summer. moreover, we only use 12 mgd as a city. where we have cut back on is the ability for the city to grow using only winter surface water.
however, i largely agree with you on harrington.