Budget/Fiscal

by Brett Lee

As a candidate for city council, I have been asked for more specifics on my thoughts on the proposed surface water project.  I have already written about my view that conservation and efficiency should be at the heart of any water project for our community.  I do not believe it is something that we should try to “bolt on” later. To maximize our cost savings and reward efficiency and conservation, it is best that conservation and efficiency be built in from the very beginning.

The Council made very few concrete policy decisions on Tuesday night, its last meeting of the year, but it did finalize motions made at the last meeting and also laid the groundwork for what promises to be another action-packed year.

Attorney Bill Kopper, former mayor of Davis and a member of the city’s Water Advisory Committee, issued a strong rebuttal against the editorial of the Sacramento Bee from December 9, “Is Davis set to scuttle Woodland water deal?”

Last year, the Davis City Council met late in the year, just before Christmas, to ratify an agreement to obtain summer water rights from developer Angelo Tsakopoulos.  This year, the city council is meeting on December 20, five days before Christmas, to repeal the water rate increase.

According to the staff report, “The Council action to rescind the rate increase(s) approved in September will result in current fiscal year water utility revenues remaining in the range of $10.0 million, depending on actual water usage.”

As we said on Saturday, both the Woodland Daily Democrat and Sacramento Bee came out with scathing editorials, giving it to Davis for the delay on the water project.

Both the Woodland Daily Democrat and Sacramento Bee came out with scathing editorials, giving it to Davis for the delay on the water project.  The papers come from very different places, and miss the mark in different ways.

On Tuesday night, the council finally heeded advice that should have been taken long ago – to slow down the water project to get community buy-in.  Missing from the discussion that night were critical figures that were the nucleus of the council’s problems, long before most of the members of the current council were even seated.

The compromise that was crafted on the dais was the right move for Davis.  The city could not move forward with the project as the rates were currently structured.

When Supervisor Matt Rexroad received letters against the radio tower that may be placed at the Yolo County Landfill, he was quick to highlight a letter that he thought was a bit odd, and in addition to quoting it, he derisively stated, “You don’t see stuff like this in Woodland.”

In the end, compromise won out.  Rochelle Swanson and Dan Wolk got the repeal of the water ordinance and the rest of the September 6 motion that had been passed by council.  Joe Krovoza got the public vote in June that he desperately wanted.  The only question now is whether the public will get the specific rates that would be required for them to make a real decision on the water project.

It is three months to the day that the council made the decision to ignore 4800 protests on the water rate hikes, to reject a proposed compromise by Councilmember Dan Wolk and to instead go forward with 14% rate hikes, that really were not 14%, without even having a rate study to determine appropriate rates and their impacts on the community.

In a way it is unfortunate that the announcement by Mayor Pro Tem Rochelle Swanson and Councilmember Dan Wolk came immediately on the heels of the budget discussion on Tuesday.  On Tuesday night, the council discussed the budget, fixing what has been a tremendous oversight – the failure to include unmet needs in budget calculations.

A remarkable thing happened Thursday on one of the more polarizing issues facing the City of Davis in recent years – the water supply project and the water rate hikes. In the face of the proposal by Mayor Pro Tem Rochelle Swanson and Councilmember Dan Wolk, there was relative calm.

One of the Vanguard’s biggest criticisms of city budgeting, going back to at least 2008, is the fact that the city’s deferred maintenance and other unmet needs was not counted against the budget but rather put into a separate “unmet” needs category.

Two weeks ago, the Public Employment Relations Board ruled that the city improperly canceled fact-finding and imposed the last, best and final offer on DCEA.

With any luck, we will know by the end of the day if the water referendum qualified for the ballot.  As we have noted for the last several weeks, the water issue, if goes on the ballot, will be a polarizing issue, encompassing about seven months’ worth of debate.