SLO water rates to rise again

June 4, 2013
Richard Schmidt

Richard Schmidt

OPINION By RICHARD SCHMIDT

In San Luis Obispo, we know it’s June when the city council votes to increase residential water and sewer fees. This annual ritual is as dependable as the swallows’ return to San Juan Capistrano.

The only thing is this ritual is a broken promise. Years ago, they promised us it wouldn’t be like this, that we’d have three years or so of significant increases, and then price stability. Today, they still talk about price stability, even as they raise rates to the stratosphere.

So, June 12 the council will vote, probably unanimously, to raise water rates for a conservation-practicing household by a whopping 23 percent.

At the same time, under the guise of “rate restructuring,” they’ll lower rates for the most profligate water wasters (think swimming pools, tons of water-guzzling landscape, and other lazy water-wasting ways) by 12 percent.

And they have the chutzpah to call this “water conservation pricing.”

In actuality, this is just one more genuflection by city hall to the city’s 1 percent, the luxury set who sing the council’s praises, and get rewarded for their singing with a sale price on water to support their lifestyle. It’s the city’s usual screw the commoners and transfer favors and money upwards stuff. So much for this being a “progressive” city!

As for water conservation, it’s the usual talk-the-talk not walk-the-walk routine from SLO city hall. “The City of San Luis Obispo wants you to conserve water,” it says on the water department’s web page. I guess that’s why we’re “restructuring” to lower rates for the biggest non-conservers. Why can’t this city just be honest and say it flat out: “We want you to waste water so we can sell more?” Because under their new rates, “sale pricing” for huge users leads to the opposite of conservation.

There are three ways the city’s rate “restructuring” aims to screw good citizens and reward the profligate.

First is an increase in the pricing for the lowest tier of water usage, what’s commonly called the lifeline tier, by about 4 percent, while decreasing the top tier, the profligate user’s top rate, by 16 percent.

Second is eliminating the current three-tier pricing schedule, by which the unit cost of water increases significantly the more one uses. In its place will be a two-tier system that catches almost every household in its top tier. Why this bizarre regressive, anti-conservation move? “A tiered rate structure which escalates pricing as total volume increases is preferable for achieving conservation,” the San Luis Obispo County Grand Jury wrote in a 2011 report critical of the current three-tier system. What would they say about a two-tier system in which top tier pricing is reduced?

Third is the imposition, on top of rate increases, of a regressive fixed monthly fee which hits the poor hardest, and would be totally without purpose if true conservation pricing had large users subsidize lifeline usage in return for their water-wasting habits – which is actually how it’s worked till now.

This $60 annual fee, on top of raising the lowest tier pricing, is plain meanness on the city’s part. It is completely unnecessary; till now, all costs were recovered through water rates. Instituting a fixed fee is the opening salvo in transferring water system costs downwards from the 1 percent, and as the fixed fee rises year after year (as it will, regardless of what they promise today), the change in rate systems becomes ever more unfair and regressive.

Water pricing doesn’t have to be so mean and regressive. In a well-run city it wouldn’t be.

A small southern California water provider I’m familiar with has low-key talk about conservation, and a pricing system that produces conservation. Instead of SLO’s two tiers, this provider has five. The lowest is lifeline-priced at $1.50 per 750 gallons (SLO’s new equivalent: $6.56). Prices escalate through the tiers: 33 percent higher for tier 2, 80 percent higher for tier 3, 177 percent for tier 4, and a whopping 243 percent for tier 5. In SLO, under the new rates, the spread between bottom and top tier pricing is a piddling 25 percent.

Further evidence the city really doesn’t care about conservation is the lack of information on water bills. The bills contain no note about the pricing of tiers, and the volume of water one is entitled to from each before prices jump up. The 2011 Grand Jury noted this deficiency, and asked the city to make its bills more informative. The city refused, and thus foregoes the most obvious method of creating conservation consciousness, something PG&E’s known and done for decades.

What shocks one most about SLO’s new and old rates is how this new anti-conservation pricing plays out in monthly bills for smaller and larger users. Water is sold by the “unit,” 100 cubic feet, about 750 gallons. I calculated old and new bills for various levels of usage. For simplicity, I’ve rounded to the dollar.

• For a seriously conserving consumer, using 5 units per month, the bill goes from $31 to $38, about a 21 percent increase.

• For a conserving household using 8 units, the bill goes from $47 to $58, about a 23 percent increase.

• For a non-conserving customer using 25 units, the bill goes from $189 to $192, less than a 2 percent increase.

• For a waterhog using 100 units, the bill decreases from $915 to $807, a whopping $108 less, a 12 percent decrease.

They have the nerve to call this conservation pricing! And to pretend that it’s fair and not regressive!

Another annoying thing about the endless rate increases is the public has no idea where this money goes, but we do know a good bit of it goes for garbage that has nothing to do with providing water – like an annoying publication called “Resource – Managing Community Resources for the Future,” a home for fluff, propaganda, nonsense and outright lies the water fund pays to have prepared by a PR agency, printed in color, and mailed to everyone.

Recently, “Resource” informed us SLO “completed an in-depth study . . . to review the current [water] rate structure and explore any alternative rate structures to ensure that the community’s goals, objectives and expectations were being met.” After this flowery fluff, we’re told: “Changing the water rate structure requires voter approval in accordance with . . . Proposition 218 . . . before final adoption can occur.” That, of course, is a bald-faced lie. There’s no voter approval for water rates under Prop. 218. That measure allows blockage of a rate increase only if a majority of water customers file individual protests. That’s almost impossible even for an organized citizenry to pull off (hats off to the folks in Paso who made it work there).

With an Isla Vista-like 70 percent transient population, SLO city knows a protest will never happen here. But, still, why do we have to pay roughly $25 a year, tacked onto our already-inflated water bills, so the city can lie to us in “resource”?

Increased sewer rates are also on the June 12 council agenda. Here, they’ve already got a regressive “fixed” monthly charge (enacted by a self-proclaimed progressive city council) that goes up every year, plus “volume” charges based on water consumption – charges that are higher for poop water than for a similar volume of pure water! Both charges are slated for increase.

Our high-cost sewage treatment regimen is the tragic result of the city staff’s bull-headed Neanderthal engineering mentality combined with poor decision-making by a city council whose members can’t see beyond accumulating a list of “accomplishment” bragging points for the next election.

Decades ago, when the city was planning its current level of sewage treatment, I was a planning commissioner, and noted the $500,000 annual cost of electricity for the engineers’ preferred treatment method, the 5,000 acre forest needed to offset the carbon released by generating so much electricity, the endless cost increases using so much energy locked us into, and asked why we weren’t going to a less costly, more ecological marsh-based final treatment process instead of a chemical plant approach?

“It can’t be done,” came staff’s answer. I rattled off some places it was being done, including Arcata, whose famous sewage marsh is actually a tourist attraction. “It can’t be done.” Whatever alternative was raised, “It can’t be done” was the response. (Years later, at a planning conference, I accompanied another commissioner to a session on marsh treatment systems, and in the middle of it, she grabbed my arm, and exclaimed: “They lied to us.” Yes, that’s what they do, all the time.)

Now the city is launched on a new round of high-tech energy sucking sewage treatment expansion, again bypassing the now even more proven low tech, lower cost biological alternatives to industrial processing of sewage, and locking future citizens into constantly escalating cost for that treatment.

And so, we lock ourselves into this sad June ritual of endless, inequitable, and now outright regressive water and sewer fee hikes.

If this bugs you, you really should let the city council know. Staff will try to counter everything I’ve said, and whatever you say, with their propaganda and persiflage. But, still, maybe if the council hears from enough of us .

Richard Schmidt is an architect and teacher, and served for 19 years as a volunteer on various city committees and commissions, including eight years on the Planning Commission, terms on the Waterways Planning Board, Environmental Quality Task Force, Election Regulations Committee, and Housing Element Task Force, and is sick about what his city has become in the last decade and a half.

 


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Water rates for the highest users are traditionally the highest. This is because it is the segment of the population that uses the most water which forces the need for expansion of treatment facilities sooner than necessary.


The folks who are not the water hogs are the majority of rate payers, and it is this majority that will be forced to pay the most for expansion of water treatment and wastewater treatment facilities.


San Luis Obispo has set itself up to have an enviable diversity in its water portfolio. This well serves the water customers of the city, and places SLO in a position of power as the availability of water decreases and the price of water increases.


However, the largest water users should not be given special treatment. Instead, they should be pounded, and pounded hard, for their overuse of SLO’s water.


I would think that the City itself is the largest consumer of water in the city. Unless you have many parks, landscaped medians, and large quantities of public buildings… what then?


So we are all wondering why SLO’s water rates are the highest in the County and amongst the highest in the Country. SLO’s water sources includes: Cayucos Resevoir (Whale Rock), Santa Margarita Lake and some ground water. Both resevoirs don’t allow human contact, thus the water is extremely pristine. It cost more to pump and treat ground water than to treat the water out of the City’s two resevoirs. Both Paso Robles and Templeton pump ground water and their rates are nearly half of that of SLO’s. Arroyo Grande relies mostly on surface lake water (Lopez Lake) that allows full recreational usage and yet their rates are nearly half of that of SLO. Here are some facts to ponder before paying your next water bill:


SLO Utilities consistently goes from inept budget analyst to inept budget analyst. This is why every year staff has to conduct a rate structure analysis. It cost lots of time and money to evaluate, study, and redo rate structures. Hmmm, I wonder how often other agencies have to do this? Oh that is okay, they are learning while doing on our dime!


SLO Utilities Department staff is amongst the highest paid water and waste water workers in the Country. The City of Los Angeles Water Department, Vallejo and one other agency in the State pays staff at the same level. Field personnel within the City’s Utilities Department can make up to $90,000 a year, plus benefits ($90,000 equates to $145,320 a year). For example, the idiot field supervisor at the City who directed staff to intentionally dump hazardous waste at the back of the City yard makes roughly $90,000.00 a year. Carrie Mattingly is the highest paid water and/or wastewater head in the County. Her salary dwarfs that of other agencies within the County. Guess who will pay the fine when this issue is finally resolved – Joe taxpayer. By the way, this guy and his idiot staff committed felonies on City time on City property and yes they are still employed at the City under Carrie Mattingly.


The City routinely is fined by the water board for violating various water regulations and rate payers pay for this in their rates. Cal the local water board and ask for the records for the past ten years, then compare those to other local agencies. Recently, the idiot who runs the waste water treatment plan was “conducting an experiment” that resulted in an discharge that exceeded allowable pollutant loads, yet you and I will pay for that mistake, not the idiot at the waste water treatment plant.


The City of SLO has the latest state of the industry waste water treatment facility when compared to any other agency in the County. Why? Well, staff will claim it is because their agency is held to a higher standard because of the Gallons per Day treated and they discharge to San Luis Creek. This is partially true. However, the real fact of the matter is that the Utilities Department instead of paying fines for various water and waste water violations agrees instead to put the cost of those penalties into various system upgrades. Guess who pays for this, yes us residents.


The City employs staff who routinely steel from the agency based upon the articles about the thief who stole a City “batwing mower” and sold it for a quick $3,000 profit and yes he was a Utilities Department staff at one time and yes he is still employed at the City.


Then there was the recent article about the apparent conman in water conservation who goes out and charges unsuspecting customers for the same services he is paid to perform as a City employee on behalf of Utility Department customers. Then there was his colleague who was busted by the FBI and DEA roughly 15 years ago for cultivating over 100 plants of marijuana at the Whale Rock Resevoir.

Then there is the fact that the City routinely waives what they call water and waste water impact fees for special developers in town. On a single project this waiver could be up to a $1,000,000.00. Guess who makes up for this shortfall, yes you guessed it – Joe taxpayer.


So, sit back and enjoy your costly drinking water! Or better yet, stand up and demand change. Reduce the costly pensions at slo; reduce the salaries of every manager at SLO to at least the County median which is up to at least 50% less. Fire inept (morally and skill wise) staff at the City or just pay the bill.


Be careful: if you start demanding accountability and/or smaller government, you just might be a target of an IRS audit, a subject of investigation by the FBI as they re-create your past via usage of internet & telephone calls, or at the very least subjected to a multitude of inspections by so many agencies the entire alphabet is represented….


…just saying.


Water=money. The City is not going to allow people to waste water, they will cut us down to Tank Girl and Urineville standards of living so that the right people (and only the right people) can develop and profit. Continued growth is not sustainable. At some point you need to stabilize your population and your economy, like the evil northern Europe countries. Everyone from the Copelands and Madonnas to the Koch brothers, Rush, and the Bilderberg Group is working to prevent this and profit from the societal arson fire. Use MORE water, as much as you can afford to slow this down as much as possible or get ready to take Navy showers and replace your yard with decorative rocks and pavers.


don’t forget Cheryl Crowe and her two sheets of tp. read up on Thomas of Malthus, he may be right, too. groan


YES! I knew it was all those people who do not work in government! FINALLY, someone can clearly point out the direct cause and effect of how we’re being governed by those looney right/libertarian freaks who won’t even take a government job! Makes total sense to me!


If you think the water rates are bad, you should see what they do to people who cannot afford or fail to pay their bill on time. First, if people pay their bill late, there is a $15 late fee. But this late fee accumulates in the “background.” So when you pay the next bill, it’s not included. If you then pay past the absurd 2pm deadline, you will get somewhere around $100 fee, EVEN if they never have to send anyone out to disconnect/reconnect your water.


There was a time when I was working out of town for months at a time and I got behind on my water bill. There was $80 past due, and I paid it at 3:30pm on the last date. As a result, I had to pay $326 to get reconnected, and that did not even cover my current amount due! I got an extensive “reasonable” explanation from them, but no matter how you cut it, that’s absurdity. In my case, we’re just talking about irresponsibility. But in the case of the person who is behind and unable to catch up right away, it would sure seem like we live in a society where it is more expensive to be poor.


The Utility Dept’s late fee and fee schedule in general has always bugged me as borderline criminal. Especially when they keep changing up the due dates (first it was bi-monthly, then monthly, then the day seems to change from quarter to quarter).


The water bill is one I have to stay on top of, less my auto-pay stuff cost me a small fortune paid to inept bureaucrats with absolutely no common sense nor accountability: just like the rest of the city and county.


When the Paso Robles Ground Water Basin Mutual Water District calls San Luis Obispo on their BS never achievable Salinas River Dam appropriation permit, the water war between the North County and SLO will run everyones rates sky high. Stay tuned for 2021.


Spot on Jorge.

Also, interesting that the city of SLO gets almost all it’s water from outside the city…


and if you cut back their income falls?


You are absolutely right! Unfortunately most people won’t read your entire article.


The SLO Property Owners a few years ago tried to qualify an initiative that would have prevented this type of thing. Any rate or fee increase greater than the rate of inflation would have to go to a vote of the people. No new fees (like this additional $5/month) could be imposed. Regrettably they were unable to get enough valid signatures. It is still a good idea and maybe someone would like to pursue this? The only way to curtail this abuse of power is to limit the council’s access to our wallets. I hope this water increase does not go through – maybe another 2-2 vote? until we get a new council member.


Wait, didn’t that one pass? I thought it was at the State level… guess it doesn’t automatically propagate down to county or local agencies… :(


I stopped watering my lawn a few years ago when our bill (still bi-monthly back then) was a whopping $300 or so! OK, so it’s been dead-lawn since. We were sneered at by several (especially the newer transplants from the bay area or LA); however, since then, most lawns around me are also now dead / not watered.


Our home does not conserve water actively, but I am a cheap bastard, so I’m particular about spending money. We have low-flow (i.e. flush twice) toilets, really low-water usage Clothes washer and energy-efficient dryer. We have a small garden for growing our own spices and such, but overall we do not use that much. Our last bill was just over $60 (not bad for a family of four). Still, it’s much more than the year prior, as every year seems to be.


I don’t agree with Richard that this is “rewarding the 1%” – Heck, that whole 99% thing is usually only referenced in jests now-a-days. Anyway, I’d look at how much the council uses. They don’t strike me as the type who would be like Apple (i.e. appeal to far left zealots, yet secretly live a luxurious capitalist lifestyle) but who knows?


Richard is not the only (perceived) lefty who is tired of this town, especially in the last decade or so. So let me ask: how left has San Luis gone in the last 10 years? Can you correlate the draconian fines/fees/regulation with the whole “more government = better” mantra the left wallows in? If not yet, when? How much more stupidity and over-regulation is needed before those who are not completely absorbed in their ideology will clearly see what’s happening? Can you count on the Tribune to point such things out? New Times? KSBY?


Why should the local and state level agencies be any less abusive than their federal level counterparts? I mean, if the top / boss is behaving badly, and common sense, respect and personal responsibility (for anything) are long gone, are we really surprised at this?


It’s like people who think their home price is going UP, but failing to see that the dollar is being decimated and devalued. How many of us cannot connect those dots? We’re an ignorant, spoon-fed society that will have to collapse in on itself before any improvements will be realized.


Thank you Richard for trying to spread the word of what really “is” concerning our city and the whole stink of the water and sewer increases. I conserve in my water usage with a conscious effort, as do some of my neighbors; why do we have to subsidize those who do not conserve?


Probably the same reason workers subsidize non workers. It’s the new America…..I would think you would be used to it..


We have had Social Security since the ’30s, and yes, when workers retire and no longer work, when a worker is injured to the point of not being able to work, those paying into Social Security do pay for those no longer working. As for the rest of the population that is on some sort of government assistance, welfare, food stamp program, unemployment, please don’t forget that the so-called “red states” take in more from the federal government for those state’s citizens than the “blue states”. And how many “non workers” are in that state of being due to their own choice? You can thank the “masters of the universe”, those s.o.b.s on Wall Street for robbing everyone and locking up all of the available credit so small businesses cannot get credit lines and unemployment does not go down. It isn’t very often that a story or situation has a simple “black or white” explanation.


You are correct in everything you said Bob, but do not be delusional that our government is allowing and supporting this. Just check out how many times the big bankers go to the White House, plus our Treasury continues to loan them free money (interest free) and they keep putting into the stock market allowing them to make more money. Government (politicians), corporations, financial institutions and unions are all bedfellows against the middle class.


I think bob is pretty set in his ideologically-driven world that only republicans are big banksters and corprateers that are out to get us. He will never suspect that his beloved is, in fact, the worst of the worst for big banking/wall street, simply because there are (D)’s after their names.


r0y: And you would be wrong in your assertion; I do not give anyone a “break” because they have a “D” after their name- I actually try to hold those who profess to be a true Democrat to a higher ideal. How I would love to support a Democratic politician who had the backbone of an FDR; he actually stated once in a speech that he welcomed the hatred of his Republican opponents, he wasn’t afraid of how he was going to be demonized in the press, he had his ideals, his agenda and he did what he could to achieve them. He overstepped his authority a few times, he certainly wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t afraid of appearing too strong. I can’t think of any current politician who feels that way other than a few Tea Party types who want nothing more then to dismantle the federal government as completely as possible. After typing that sentence, I realized there is one Democrat currently in office that seems to be in the mold of an FDR; Senator Elizabeth Warren- say what you will about her, everyone knows where she stands, and yes, she wants to go after the Wall Street/Big Banking individuals who crashed our economy and walked away with the billions they swindled from a lot of individuals, and she does not care if they are donors to either party, she would like to see them prosecuted, period.


If your neighbors consume more, they pay more. You really have no clue as to what a subsidy it, do you? Here, let’s use Richard’s examples:


Low use = 5 units, waterhog = 100 units. That is twenty (20) times more units.


Low use = $38, waterhog = $807. That is 21.24 times more money. Seems like they’re either no longer letting higher-usage people subsidize the low use, OR they are trying to be FAIR. “Level the playing field” – isn’t that one of your favorite mantras?


So how is bringing a waterhog’s bill closer to the same rate as a low use a SUBSIDY? Oh, let me guess: if waterhogs are NOT penalized for not being more like you, then they are being subsidized by not having the excess charges?


Ah, the logic of the left. About as stoopid as some logic from the right (though, let’s be honest, they’re never to be found in our government, are they?)


r0y: It is apparent that you did read the opinion piece, but I don’t think you fully comprehended the implications of what was presented; that water hog using 100 units of water has been paying $915 and when the rate change happens, 100 units worth will drop to the $807; that is a decrease which means that the water hog is being subsidized. Does that make any sense to you that someone who overuses a resource should be rewarded for doing so? Cutting the amount paid by the top users by raising the rates for the lower users means that the lower users are paying for the rate decrease for the top users, which means that the lower users are subsidizing the high users, period.


As for the logic of the left versus the logic of the right; why do you vote for someone who rails about how government cannot “do” anything and then once they get elected they proceed to stop government from doing anything? And to as they’re being found in our government, please look at the leadership of the House of Representatives, controlled by the Republican Party. ALL spending bills originate from the House, not the Senate, not the White House, not the Supreme Court, the House of Representatives. How many jobs bills have they called for a vote on in the last couple of years?


Now Bob, stated above I agree with you and now you write this. Why dump trillions of dollars – which we would have to borrow and pay interest on – when any intelligent person can see how absolutely wasted the first job bill went going to all though wonderful successful job creations under alternative energy companies like Solyndra and 23 other bankrupt companies and 27 in trouble companies including the fancy car that is still costing the taxpayers $10,000 every time one is sold and now that money is gone costing us taxpayers trillions of dollars.. Me, I don’t want anymore of these types of job bills that repay the unions, bankers, and donors. No, no thank you!


Trillions of dollars? Where on earth did you pull that number from? Solyndra was a very poorly executed and run company; the technology they were working on could have made a real difference if the Chinese government hadn’t dumped the below-cost solar panels and devices on the market. Had the company been run better, they might have been able to fend off the Chinese onslaught. As for Tesla Motor Company, they have paid off their federal loan, IN FULL.

I would much rather see jobs bills, flawed as they may be, being worked on and passed than to keep on building more weapons that the Defense Department doesn’t want, then to keep voting to repeal Obamacare (what is it now, 38 times with the same results?) and to keep on with the witch hunts to try and find a scandal in the Obama White House. Our economy has not fully recovered, it is consumer driven, not supply side; we need more demand and the only way we get more demand is to have more people working. People with a job spend money; people without don’t, it is that simple.


Leveling the playing field = subsidies? Bob, I used the examples provided in the piece you claim *I* didn’t read. The rates are moving closer to the same multiplier, plain and simple. The lower rate payer was paying a SMALLER multiplier, while the larger consumers were paying a HIGHER multiplier. Now, they are close to paying the same multiplier (think FAIRNESS?) and you claim they are being subsidized? Why? Because someone using less is now forced to pay the SAME and no longer be subsidized? You are looking at the total figure paid, not the multiplier – which, in the world of utilities, is everything.


Sorry you seem to miss this simple math problem repeatedly. I do not know what to say to make it any clearer or simpler.