Water Rate Hikes to Cost Trabuco Residents Thousands Extra
Recall of Rate-Hiking Board Seeking Support to Move Ahead
The” average” homeowner in the Trabuco Canyon Water District will pay an extra $6,800 in water bills over the next 5 years, after steep rate increases approved in June by the district board.
TCWD rate hikers from left to right: Glenn Acosta, Don Chadd,Stephen Dopudja, Edward Mandich, Michael Safranski
Homeowners with larger water meters will pay up to an extra $21,000 due to the rate increases.
Greater Losses Possible if Board Comes Back for More
Recall in Progress to Stop Them Before They Do It Again
Residents may actually be facing greater losses over the next five years, if past board behavior is any indication. The board’s June 5-year rate schedule replaced in midstream a previous 5-year schedule that was supposed to run through 2025. That schedule, approved in December 2020, showed an “average” 2025 monthly bill of only $147, compared with $200 in the current schedule. The board must commission a costly, legally-required rate study prior to each “5-year” rate hike. Such astronomical water rates could discourage future home buyers when they show up on published real estate listings.
Proponents of a recall campaign to unseat the district’s out-of-control board have completed the first phase of the process by collecting sufficient signatures on notices of intention. The notices must be served on board members and then, within 10 to 17 days, published in a newspaper at a cost of $1,649 per board member.
Recall proponents are seeking funds to proceed with the recall, asking each of the 9,000 registered voters in the water district to invest a small portion of the thousands in extra water bills they are facing so that the rate piracy can be stopped.
Yorba Linda Rate Payers Recall Water Board Members
Two Yorba Linda Water District board members were successfully recalled in 2016 after they voted to raise rates 380 percent over five years. Watch “Rate Hikers Gouge the Wrong Taxpayers. Yorba Linda residents understood that their water board was elected to represent the rate payers, oversee the bureaucracy, scrutinize its budget, and provide affordable water. They understood that it was their civic responsibility—and no one else’s—to either hold the board accountable or invite more of the same abuse year after year into the future. Trabuco residents now face the same choice—fight back or continue to be robbed again and again by free-spending water-industry insiders who haven’t faced an election challenge since 2008, show no sense of duty or accountability to the rate payers, and apparently believe they are invulnerable.
Commentary: Where is our money going?
Part 1—$27k to a public relations consultant?
Coca Cola, Toyota and McDonald’s—yes—but why, the reader might ask, would a water district, with a monopoly on the most basic necessity of life, and the power to shut it off if its asking price, however steep, is not paid on time and in full—why would such an agency need to hire a public relations consultant? Well, that is exactly what the Trabuco Canyon Water District did back in January when it began planning to spring a gargantuan rate increase on its 4,100 customers. Its general manager and board budgeted $32,000 (for starters) to Rockspark Inc. to develop a “TCWD Strategic Communications Plan.” And, for their [our] money, they got 62 pages of glowing, organization-speak largely-boilerplate, including ”Strategy 1: develop dedicated outreach plans to support key initiatives, including the potential need for a rate increase.” The Rockspark team went right to work on a “rate increase outreach plan” to convince rate payers that getting reamed on their water bills and paying twice as much as their neighbors across the street in adjoining water districts, was really a good thing for which they should be thankful. You can read the entire plan here—after all, you paid for it—$26,931.32 to be exact, so far this year.
Readers outraged by the insult of being charged to propagandize themselves, added to the injury of being royally fleeced for water, may take some comfort in knowing that Rockspark’s plan does go on to provide such long-awaited benefits as a facelifted web site, a new color palette (page 12) that represents “TCWD’s unique community and environment,” and a “strategic media relations program” (page 20) to “establish the City [oops—#@$%! word processor missed that one!] as a credible, reliable source for commentary.” And in case we didn’t get the message yet, a “regular email customer newsletter” (page 29) will be coming, along with water bill inserts to remind us of what our parents always said when dispensing foul-tasting medicines: “this is for your own good!” For $32,000, let’s hope it works to ease the pain of opening our water bills each month. If not, they may need to add something to the water, and that could cost even more!
Important questions! Who will replace them? If all or a majority of the board are voted out in a recall election, then the county board of supervisors will either appoint sufficient successors to establish a quorum (3), or order an election to fill the vacant seats for the remainder of their terms. What is the plan that will keep our water rates reasonable? In a word, "vigilance.” It is up to the district voters to recruit, support, and elect candidates who will prioritize affordable water rates, and—as we are trying to do now—remove them from office when they don’t. In the present situation, only two members are up for re-election in November 2024, so that even if they are voted out at that time, a majority of rate hike supporters remain in office for another two years. That adds up to 40 months of “unreasonable” water bills. A successful recall shortens the bloodletting, and issues clearmarching orders to the replacements that their days in office are numbered unless they get the rates back down. But the recall process may not need to play out to the bitter end. The water board can at any time suspend and reconsider its rate hikes. This is exactly what the Santa Margarita Water District board did when faced with public outcries after it passed big rate hikes in Capistrano. https://www.thecapistranodispatch.com/water-district-board-elects-to-reexamine-san-juan-utility-rates-following-outcry/ That board listened to the people they were elected to represent and decided to revisit the underlying rate study. Ours could do the same. The problem, though—as anyone who attended the standing-room-only board hearing on June 29 can attest—is that they are not listening. And a neighbor who has a two-inch residential water meter recently appealed to the district for some relief from the $271 monthly fixed meter charge and was denied and told, “nobody else has complained about it.” Since the last board election way back in 2008, the board has passed a series of incremental rate hikes, each received with some grumbling and token protest votes, but posing no serious threat to their political careers. It hardly seems surprising, then, that they might naturally assume that people would just accept the big one in June, hand in a few protest votes, grumble for a while, and then forget about it. A recall serves to get their attention and remind them that, this time, they’ve gone too far, turning the heat up so high that the frogs are starting to jump out of the boiling pot. As the recall process unfolds over the months, they will have time to come to their senses and re-examine the increases and the underlying rate study. That rate study failed to consider what customers could afford to pay, and thus failed to provide a realistic assessment of the district’s income.
I understand the reasoning for wanting to recall the board and that's a good step. I also appreciate the work to articulate the outrageous increases, and highlight the lack of reasoning and justification for such massive increases.
Has a formal complaint already been filed with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC)? The CPUC is the regulating body for, and watchdog of utility companies to ensure they provide safe, reliable utility service at reasonable rates, as well as protecting against fraud. It sounds like you've collected enough data and information to submit a formal complaint, which then the CPUC is required to investigate.