By John Tusting
ON TUESDAY NIGHT, BENICIA CITY COUNCIL voted on the city’s proposed rate hike for water and sewer service. The proposal, which was sent to residents and businesses via mail in October and again in November, justified the rate increase by citing a crumbling infrastructure and rising regulatory climate, and by comparing Benicia’s rates to other rates in the “region.”
The latter item was cited in the mailings without specifically identifying these comparative pricing sources, but when pressed by Council members to provide this data, city staff presented slides that demonstrated our current rates are actually in the middle of the pack compared with those of about 10 other water jurisdictions.
While it appears that a rate increase may be justified — and according to our city officials, actually required to offset our operating deficit — what was presented was a rate increase so high it borders on obscene. The proposed increase would put Benicia’s rates 45 percent higher than Fairfield’s, 18 percent higher than Vallejo’s and 17 percent higher than Vacaville’s, and on track to be one of the highest rates in the region by 2017, when the fifth and final stage of the increase is implemented.
What was most disappointing in this proposal was the manner in which it was presented to our community — not as a ballot or bond measure, but as an innocuous mailing sent to the approximately 7,000 water users in the city. The requirement that the city clerk receive 50 percent plus one negative responses, mailed or hand delivered, to negate the rate increase is ridiculous at best, as in all likelihood most of the mailings went directly into the trash without being opened.
Based on how it was vetted for review, it was clear this measure would be railroaded through, with the only claim to transparency being that the public was notified via mail and afforded a single opportunity for discussion at Tuesday’s Council meeting. What further disappointed was the lack of imagination at developing alternatives to the proposed rate increase, as well as cost reductions and water conservation actions implemented to date.
In case anyone actually read the mailing and did the math, the rate hike calculates to a combined water and sewer cost increase of 41.3 percent over the next five years, a number confirmed at the Council meeting by the city representative who presented this proposal. On its face, this proposal appears to have been developed in an executive vacuum, with minimal if any public input or discussion. Yet despite multiple requests at the meeting to take this back to the drawing board and do more thorough benchmarking comparisons — and despite acknowledgment by Council members that some of the alternative ideas presented were worth consideration — the proposal was pushed through.
The final disappointment (but honestly no great surprise) was the lack of response from our community to such an egregious grab by our city into all of our pockets. Nearly as much time was absorbed by Council members and the city attorney over whether to pay a tire/pothole damage claim of $180 as was spent discussing and accepting public comment for the far more significant proposed water and sewer rate increase. Despite a projected tab that will translate to millions of dollars that Benicia residents and businesses will pay over the next few years beginning in 2013, the public outcry was little more than a pathetic whimper.
While our city representatives can be credited for slipping a fast one past their constituents, our underwhelming public response is as much to blame for passage of the rate increase. Consequently, this will result in thousands of dollars that will be collected from each of us over the subsequent years — at a time, it should be mentioned, when our economy is at an all-time low and unemployment is at an all-time high. The whopping 47 negative written responses represents about 1 percent of the solicited constituency — a far cry from the 50 percent plus one the Council indicated was required to overturn the rate increase. In a city of thousands, only four individuals took the podium to address the Council on this matter, each strictly limited to five minutes to air their concerns.
So, thanks in large part to inaction on the part of the Benicia residential and business community, the proposal passed unanimously and inconspicuously.
Congratulations go to all on demonstrating a shining example of how (and what) our government serves us, both in the small local picture and the larger scale. Silence unfortunately translates to endorsement — period. If on a given Tuesday night America’s public would rather sit on the sofa and watch TV than stand up and pay attention when important public policy decisions are being made, then we probably deserve what comes our way.
Bon appetit on your next glass of water. My five minutes is up.
Benicia resident John Tusting is a biotech process engineer, small business owner and taxpayer.
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I don’t think it was mentioned that the city failed to file a required report and was fined $60,000! Why should we pay for that? I think the city manager should pay for that out of his millions we are paying him! Give me a break!
Aside from that, the majority of the residents in Benicia and doing their utmost to conserve, conserve, conserve. So, there are less revenues to pay the bills so they want to penalize the residents for conserving. DOES NOT MAKE SENSE!
Well Rick I guess you want him to pay the $60,000 out of his salary.. By the way Rick what do you mean by millions. It will take over three years to reach a millon dollars for the cost to the city of the City Managers salary. Rick I do not know where you get your numbers but they are not accurate. Keep on talking Rick you will just bury yourself in a much bigger hole.
A few years back when I owned a home in Berkeley the city pulled a similar stunt.Friends in Frisco were able to call their water company and get a representative to come to the property and adjust the assessment for sewer charges by reviewing the percentage of water that went on the garden and not down the pipes. I tried this with EBMUD and was told to go away. So I reconfigured the plumbing somewhat and put in an additional meter for the garden water. Witnessed and notarized the meter numbers and start date. Then I back charged and through a whole lot of persistence, got my way.If enough of your neighbors are willing to buy tanks and cisterns you might think about shopping around for water delivery. It does not have to be great water if you install filtration at you kitchen sink. Then an incinerator toilet and you no longer need your old service. And with grey water going back out on the garden, nothing goes down the sewer.When I’m up here from Mexico I make my own water on my boat. I can do about 30 gal and hour and I control the quality.
I think that our city manager, former members of the council plus those who have continued from the era when the water infrastructure (delivery, processing drinking water and waste and sewers), plus the managerial staffs related to the maintenance of that infrastructure had dropped the ball on this mess in years gone by, and left us with the need to fix many aspects of water and sewer needs for the residents at one time. Deferred maintenance is often the more expensive alternative to planning for current demands and anticipated future needs.
So the questions should be more in the line of finding out why these people let these issues slide? Political expediency, hoping to present themselves as offering lower cost services to the city? Do they represent incompetence for not surveying the condition of the utilities and reporting to the citizens of Benicia? Did they really have too much on their plates, just handling the daily attention-grabbers in their respective departments and representative positions? What sort of reports had the city manager and the council received about the condition of these infrastructure items and their sufficiency for future needs? In short, how was this set of shortcomings and failures allowed to develop? I think that we need answers to questions like these, much more than we need to fume about the city manager’s “millions,” although there may be some who would want to ask what we would have to pay to get a city manager and department managers who would have done the job better in the past, so we wouldn’t be faced with five years of rapidly increasing rates.
Paul I do believe you will find that the problem goes back a few years. Some of those folks are still on board. But to blame the present City Manager which I do not think you are is I think a bit of a stretch for anyone. Answers and recent history on the issue I do believe you are correct. We the residents do need answers. He is just starting his third year. He took over a big mess. About the millions that have been stated in the past. Yes if you want to to out for five/ten years it could be millions. Paul you are correct we do not need to fume about it. But at the same time accurate info on yearly basis is needed. The entire cost to the city of the present City Manager including his housing allowance is right at $305,000 not the $400,000 or $500,000 thousand that has been stated by a commentor. City Attorney is about $277,000. Balance of dept. heads average is about $217,000. The residence must remember that these cost also include the city side of CalPers which is huge. Now as you said lets get some answers from responsible folks. No answers the residence will know what to do. Good comment Paul.
All comments are appreciated. Have had a lot of good feedback since this came out. The article was intended to raise awareness and maybe even ruffle a couple of feathers (I hope it did). My primary objection to the manner in which this was passed was the lack of public input, and shortsightedness of reducing a deficit by simply charging more to the rate-payers (quickly becoming the American way), as well as the misinformation that was presented in the mailings.
All this gives a very clear picture of a mayor and city council that want to spend as little time and effort as possible to quickly solve an admittedly large problem. The entire process including the manner in which the mayor repeatedly reminded speakers that their allotted time was running out was a disgustingly rushed display of how due process is NOT supposed to work. Come re-election time, I hope our public has a functional memory. I voted for 2 of the current council members, even had one of their signs in my front yard. The joke’s on me. None of them represented our better interests in this decision. I’ll happily lend my support to anyone else that runs against them or the mayor in the future.
Mayor is termed out. I do believe you will find the current council members are aware of the financial situation. There will be some hard decision in the next few months. This whole issue goes back many years and has just been passed on. Everyone new it was there. Upping rates even 10./15 years ago was not a political good move. Even if it was just a dollar a month. As I have said many times before these financial issues are not going to go away any time soon. Better start addressing them now before say Valero changes their refinery to say a storage tank facility. Anything can happen. All expenditures must be on the table and in the budget. No exceptions. You just may well see further cuts and even a RIF. We shall see. Good article.