City officials say sewer rate protest letters must follow state guidelines
City officials are notifying Bakersfield residents that letters protesting a controversial proposal to increase sewer rate must follow certain requirements under state law.
Residents are organizing against the proposal but some information circulating in online forums is incorrect, city officials said. They are warning that only protest letters with the appropriate information will be accepted.
City officials said they've received a number of emails regarding the rate increase but that state law requires certain steps for official submissions.
"It needs to have a wet signature," said Evette Roldan, the city's wastewater manager, referring to a handwritten signature.
"You can't have a photocopy, can't email it in, can't be an electronic submission. That sort of thing," Roldan said. "Coming to the council meeting, just speaking at the council meeting doesn't count as a protest."
Letters notifying residents of the proposed increase were sent out April 11 under a state law known as Proposition 218 that requires jurisdictions to notify constituents. Under Prop. 218, if a jurisdiction receives protest letters from more than 50% of the impacted residents, the increase can't be enacted.
In order to qualify as an official protest, letters must include an original or "wet" signature, the property address, the property parcel number and the name of the property owner.
Protests for multiple properties owned by a single person can be included in one letter, but they must include the address and parcel number of each property.
Letters do not have to state a reason for the opposition.
Address parcel numbers can be found using the Assessor Property Search function on the Kern County Record Assessor's office website at kerncounty.com.
Because letters must be signed in-person by the property owner, letters must either be hand-delivered to the clerk's office or sent by mail. Emailed copies of protest letters, including photos of signed letters, are not acceptable, nor are electronic signatures.
Letters may be submitted to the city clerk at Bakersfield City Council meetings. Any such letters must be submitted to the city clerk before the end of the public hearing scheduled for May 28.
Bakersfield residents are looking at a more than 300% increase in their sewer rates, raising the annual fee for a single-family home from $239 to $950.
The increase is needed to cover what the city says is as much as $600 million in emergency upgrades, including a new treatment plant to replace the city's aging Plant 2 on Planz Road, originally built in 1958.
The city council voted to send Prop. 218 notices after long deliberation at their March 26 meeting. The vote was split 3-2 with two members absent.
If the city does not receive the requisite number of Prop. 218 protest letters, the proposed increase will still have to pass a vote of the city council.
"Right now, it's basically out to vote in the public," Roldan said of the protest process.
"If we receive 50% official, majority protests, it basically takes it away from the council. People (will) have spoken and they voted it down," Roldan said. "Absent the majority, it's a council vote."
Angered by such a large increase so suddenly, several residents have expressed further frustration that instructions for submitting an official protest aren't clearer.
"It doesn't say anything about whether it has to be handwritten or typed or whatnot. And the other thing is, it doesn't have a link to how to find your parcel number," said Johnny Olaguez, a resident who's trying to organize opposition to the increase.
An unsuccessful candidate for the Ward 6 council seat last year, Olaguez posted a flier to social media calling on residents to attend the council's Wednesday meeting to give public comment on the increase.
Olaguez said he plans to be there with pens and a stack of template letters to help people fill out their protests.
"To have me jump through all these hoops to have to oppose this. I'm very knowledgeable and I know computers," Olaguez said. "But when you talk about, you know, grandma who's 80 years old living on fixed income. If you're going to have to go down to Kern County get her parcel number, write a letter, sign it, drop it off. That just seems like a little bit too much work."
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