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Protest fails, Grover Beach to raise water rates 112%

December 12, 2023

By KAREN VELIE

Following a combative hearing on Monday, the Grover Beach City Council voted 3-2 to raise water and sewer rates by 112% over four years, with council members Robert Robert and Clint Weirick dissenting.

During public comment, more than two dozen residents, including six former mayors, asked the council not to raise rates. Multiple speakers argued that the Central Coast Blue water project is an overpriced boondoggle, while only three public speakers voiced support for the project.

On social media and during a protest held prior to the meeting, several people affiliated with the protest threatened to recall any council members who vote to raise water and sewer rates.

Opponents of the rate increase held a protest prior to Monday’s City Council meeting.

In September, a consultant recommended the city raise its rates to cover the cost of Central Coast Blue, a recycled water project designed to establish a dependable water supply for residents and businesses of Grover Beach, Arroyo Grande and Pismo Beach. Grover Beach is also in need of critical sewer system upgrades.

At the current rates, Grover Beach will fall $2 million short of its share of Central Coast Blue costs and other water and wastewater obligations beginning in 2024, with the projected deficit increasing in subsequent years.

During the past two months, members of the community have walked door to door, mailed out fliers, spoke on radio shows and displayed signs asking rate payers to sign protests against the proposed rate increase. If more than 50% of city’s water and sewer rate payers had submitted protest letter prior to the end of Mondays hearing, the proposed increase would have failed.

Instead, approximately 34% of the rate payers submitted protests before the end of the hearing, Mayor Karen Bright said.

Councilman Daniel Rushing voiced his passion for Central Coast Blue, which he said was needed to provide water security. Councilman Zach Zimmerman said the project will just get more expensive with time and that it did not make since to go back to the drawing board.

While Councilman Clint Weirick agreed that the city needs a new water supply, he argued against the rate increase at a time many of the city’s lower income residents are struggling to pay their bills.

Mayor Bright said that more than 60% of the rate payers support the increase, which led to angry shouts from the audience, many of whom believe the bulk of the community is opposed to the rate increase. They argued that a failure to send in a protest does not show support for a rate increase.

Shouts and name calling prompted Bright to call two recesses in an attempt to get the crowd under control.

 


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The same 34% who think Trump won in 2020. Can’t believe they are not in the majority.


-27

Welcome Gorver Beach you can now join AG in having a mayor completely out of touch with the residents and what we are going through.


31

Mayor “Not So” did not call 2 recesses. Mayor Bright incited the response with her manner and comment and then banged the gavel and said the meeting was over. That was a Brown Act violation. The protests were not threatening or sufficient to warrant clearing the room and doing so requires 2 warnings. However, they did shut off the cameras and most people left. Then, after hasty consultations with the attorney, (because the mayor had just violated the Brown Act) the police chief invited those few left back into the chambers if they would “be quiet.” They got a lecture from the mayor on being respectful.


13

It would be helpful to provide background on the issue of respect. Council chambers seat 104, as noted above the door. The chamber had just 38 chairs and residents were not allowed into the room. They were left standing in the entry hall and then told they had to go outside because they were blocking the entry. Most were seniors. It was cold and dark and there were no seats. The only way to view the meeting was to watch through a window. The sound system had an echo and they had to listen from the open doors, so hearing was difficult. That’s how the mayor respects her constituents.


20

What is killing us is this pc culture. The rest of world has us so wrapped around our own axle, that we do not see that someone is stealing our car!!


8

That Grover Beach mayor is not too Bright!


27

clever


1

The Grover reach sewer and water infrastructure is in extreme need of upgrade. Rates have been artificially low for decades. Look at the sewer fees as they are now. There is no way those charges can cover the cost of what is necessary to have a safe and sane sewage service maintained after year. Please learn the facts of the matter before making these protest against paying a fair market value for services


-15

This not about infrastructure, that will be a separate bill. It is about more water at any cost for developers, but not paid for by developers. SLO CIty did the same thing with the Nacimiento Pipeline, here’s your bill for $190 million, and by the way it has nothing to do with development :)


14

We once had a 218 protest vote in Santa Margarita only to find out that if we succeeded the needed money would be borrowed from the County General Fund and our community would pay the interest too. We learned that the 218 vote option is a smoke screen to enable government to wear out public participation.


10

Let the recall begin!


29

Grover city council, and SLO County as a whole, continue to do their water dances….and yet they continue to issue new building permits in a downward spiral of ever increasing load on the limited resource (water).


100% of increasing water resources should be bore by those newcomers to the system.


Or, just stop with the building permits. We don’t have enough water to support more population, so just STOP!


42

There is plenty of water, NIMBY. Other countries with similar climates operate in half the water per capita we do.


-27

Bill Stadler and Ken Hamilton did a BS Study that concluded 80% of the cost of the Nacimiento pipeline should be born by existing customers in the interest of “reliability”, a reliability that is immediately negated when you allocate all the water to development. City Hall is not governed by citizens, it is governed by all too frequently corrupt economic interests with influence within City Hall.


19

Hey Grover, welcome to the party.


your friend, morro bay


37

Morro Bay should exercise eminent domain to take ownership of that power plant. Light up 1 turbine to start making power again….and use that power to run their own desalination plant. Morro Bay could sell excess water around the county and soon be ‘water barons’ of SLO County. Water is the next gold.


11

Wow that sounds cheap. That may be the single worst idea ever. It would take all the money in the world to get that place running again. MB doesn’t want batteries, imagine what they would do if they found out fossil fuels are actually slowly killing them every single da.


-28
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