Latest news with #Prop.218
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
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 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."
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Residents balk at proposed sewer rate increase
Letters notifying Bakersfield residents of a major hike in their sewer rates went out last week and already residents are organizing to oppose the increase. The city has raised its sewer rates only twice since 2006, allowing Bakersfield residents to enjoy some of the lowest rates among the state's large cities. Now, city officials say they need to start looking into building a new wastewater treatment plant. The rate increase approved by the City Council at its March 26 meeting is planned to increase raise rates more than 300%. For a single-family home that means what was a yearly rate of $239, or $19.92 a month, will jump to $950 per year, or $79.17 a month. A state law known as Proposition 218 requires jurisdictions to send notices to impacted ratepayers and hold a public meeting within 45 days of those notices being issued. On April 11, such notices were sent to Bakersfield residents. "How can they think we can afford this big increase?" a user self-identified as R.L. asked on the social media platform Nextdoor. "We need to go to the meeting and tell them, 'No, we're not paying this.'" The official meeting to hear protests against the increase isn't scheduled until May 28, but social media posts have called on residents to attend the council's next meeting on Wednesday to protest the increase. The change even drew the attention of state Sen. Melissa Hurtado, D-Sanger, who issued a letter Wednesday "urging greater transparency and oversight" in the city's proposal. "I appreciate the work local leaders are doing to invest in our infrastructure — that's not in question,' Hurtado said in a statement. 'But when ratepayers are potentially on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in unexplained spikes, it's our responsibility to ask the tough questions." Under Prop. 218, if the city receives objections from more than 50% of impacted residents, it can't move forward with the increase. Objections can be made in person at the May 28 meeting or submitted in writing to the city clerk's office before the end of that meeting. Some residents have posted letter templates in English and Spanish protesting the increase for residents to use. Driving the cost is pent-up demand for maintenance and repairs with the city's aging sewer infrastructure, including what the city says is the need for a new wastewater treatment plant. The city currently has two treatment plants, the smaller of which — Wastewater Treatment Plant No. 2 on East Planz Road — was built in 1958 and last upgraded in 2000. The plant, which operates at all hours to process 25 million gallons of wastewater daily, has significant corrosion issues and runs technologies that were cutting edge in the 1970s, according to Wastewater Manager Evette Roldan. Needed repairs at the facility added up quickly, Roldan said, and staff determined that a new facility would be a better use of money, not just for current residents but for the rapid growth the city is experiencing, particularly in southwest Bakersfield. "We got to the point of when you started adding up all the potential improvements that we came to the conclusion that it's most likely going to be some type of a significant upgrade or a full rebuild," Kristina Budak, director of water resources, said at the March 26 meeting. "And that's where we identified the cost of being approximately $450 million for construction," she said. Staff presented council members with four options for funding the projects, two of which were designed to collect all needed money while two others would have raised only enough money to operate the old plant while raising half the funds for a new facility, both within five years. Budak said staff looked at expanding the timeline beyond five years to seven, but Prop. 218 limits approval of increases to five years into the future. If the city were to raise only half the needed funds, it would likely issue bonds to raise the remaining money, adding interest payments long into the future to the total cost of the project. According to a graphic presented by city staff, Bakersfield's current rate of $239 per year was lower than that of Fresno ($379), Anaheim ($558) and Sacramento ($627). The proposed annual rate of $950 would put the city between that of San Diego ($939) and Los Angeles ($1,375). It wasn't an easy decision for council members to make. Members spent roughly an hour debating the topic, and several expressed frustration with the shortage of options. "When you're the cheapest and you only patch what's broke," Ward 4 Councilman Bob Smith said, "then sooner or later you have to pay. And the longer we wait, the higher this number goes in my mind." Ward 1 Councilman Eric Arias said he recognized the need for upgrades to the treatment plant but noted many of his constituents were living on fixed incomes. "I think that we have to do everything that we can at the local level to help folks literally survive and fight for the next day. And I think that timing is really what it comes down to for me," Arias said. "I think it's very clear we have to upgrade the sewer plant, No. 2. I just don't know that now is the right time." The decision to send out the Prop. 218 notices came down to a narrow vote. Council members voted 3-2 to send out the notices, with members Zack Bashirtash, Larry Koman and Greg Smith voting in favor and Eric Arias and Andrae Gonzales voting against. Members Manpreet Kaur and Ken Weir were absent. The city has taken note of the public's frustration with the issue, posting information on social media about the proposal with instructions on how to give public comment. "We've seen your posts and messages about the proposed sewer rate adjustment — and we understand your frustration," the city said on social media.
