Grover Beach wins Golden Fleece Award

September 16, 2024

Statement from Central Coast Taxpayers Association

Today, the Central Coast Taxpayers Association (CCTA), the taxpayer watchdog of the Central Coast of California and San Luis Obispo County, announced its dual awards for 2023.

Each year, CCTA awards its Golden Fleece Award to government officials or entities for exceptionally expensive and wasteful government expenditures. CCTA also awards an exceptional individual its Hero of the Taxpayer Award for outstanding efforts to protect the public from excessive and wasteful spending.

Grover Beach City Council and city administration win Golden Fleece Award

In 2021, the City of Grover Beach implemented a five-year plan of annual water and sewer rate increases promising it would fully fund the Central Coast Blue recycled wastewater project. After paying $3 million for the project, in Sept. 2023, Grover Beach water and sewer customers received a city letter announcing a rate increase that would double their water and sewer rates over four years to pay for the project that had skyrocketed from an early estimate of $24 million to $99 million.

When 2,000 families wrote to the city protesting the increase, the Grover Beach City Council raised rates anyway, and then illegally blocked recalls initiated in response to the increase, approving an estimated $200,000 of ratepayer funds to defend city election violations, and losing in court.

The City Council reduced some of the water rates when it withdrew from the project when it reached $160 million but did not withdraw the scheduled 2021 Central Coast Blue project rate increases, or the sewer increases for the project.

Debbie Peterson wins Hero of the Taxpayer Award

When Debbie Peterson, former Grover Beach mayor, and author of the Integrity 101 series of books about good governance, heard in Sept. 2023 that her water rates would double in four years, she realized that she wouldn’t be able to afford to stay in Grover Beach. Then it came to her that if she couldn’t afford it, it was likely others couldn’t either. She started asking questions.

Before long, 4,000 people in Grover Beach were also questioning the project – a wastewater treatment plant to process Pismo Beach wastewater and inject it into the drinking water aquifer under Grover Beach and Oceano.

Without their permission, the people of Grover Beach would gain a wastewater treatment plant. They would pay twice to repair streets that would be torn up again for pipelines and wells – streets they had repaired by approving a bond in 2014 that currently adds 10% to their property tax bills.

Concerned citizens asked Debbie Peterson to lead their efforts and in ten short months GROVERH2O accomplished the impossible, gathering thousands of signatures for the 2024 Citizen’s Ballot Initiative, G-24 to repeal the water rate increase, and other initiatives that would give Grover Beach voters and residents more say at city hall.

The collective whistleblowers audited water bills, bringing refunds to water customers when the city implemented increases early and again in the reduction of some of the increased charges for the Central Coast Blue project when it was put on hold. The group went on to present an engineering study to the county, which it is now implementing, that will improve management of Lopez water to provide 1,000 to 1,500 additional acre-feet of water a year, an amount equivalent to Grover Beach’s annual use.

“The people of Grover Beach have accomplished the impossible: setting precedent in filing a successful court case against the city for violating election laws, putting the YES on G-24 REPEAL on the November ballot to enforce a full repeal of the increases, provided an economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable water solution for more than enough water to supply the city without the Central Coast Blue project, and seeking the recall of council representatives who did not listen to them,” Peterson said.

“The heroes are the citizens of Grover Beach who together, have fixed their streets and found their voice, demanding a say in how their community goes forward,” Peterson added. “I am so proud of how neighbor and neighbor are working alongside one another in pursuit of good governance. When the people participate, and their elected representatives listen communities thrive.”