Trabuco Water District Rate Payers Challenge "Meter Tax"
Claim it is Unfair and Unconstitutional
A group of Trabuco Canyon Water District residents confronted board members Thursday evening over the $175 - $271 monthly “fixed meter charges” they must now pay for their 1.5-inch and 2-inch water meters. These charges are in addition to payments for actual water usage, and will increase each year to $295 and $457 in July 2027, according to a schedule of rate hikes approved by the board in June.
Trabuco resident Sue Marucci asked board members to explain why they are charging $175 for her 1.5-inch meter when she uses very little water each month, but charging only $47 for customers with 3/4-inch meters who actually use more water. “According to Proposition 218 in the California Constitution,” Marucci wrote in a letter to the district, “revenues derived from the fee or charge shall not exceed the funds required to provide the property-related service.” “Does [my] meter alone cost that fee a month when smaller meters cost less?” Marucci asked. In response, district staff members offered an array of hypothetical scenarios, including “what if the family grows or children move back home,” or “what if you needed to fight a wildfire.” “I currently live alone,” said Marucci, noting that many large families live in homes with 3/4-inch meters, use more water, and pay only $47 a month. “In case of a fire,” she countered, “I will evacuate. There is a fire hydrant within a yard of my property.”
Courts interpreting Proposition 218 have held that the meter charge must not exceed the actual—not hypothetical—and proportional cost to service the specific property. Yet the district has used such less-than-convincing hypothetical scenarios in an attempt to disguise its meter charge as a “fee or charge” rather than the property tax that it actually is. In this way, it has circumvented the majority voter approval that a tax requires. Apparently unable to demonstrate that it costs them four times as much to “service” Marucci’s water meter as compared with a 3/4-inch meter, the board instead promised the residents a new “meter downsizing policy” for digging up a customer’s water meter and replacing it with a smaller one. The policy is being discussed in committee, the board said, and will be aired at its next meeting. There was no discussion of how much a meter surgery would cost, or the impact on the district’s budget—premised on gouging customers with larger meters—if a lot of them request downsizing to cheaper meters.
Water Board Recall Fund Reaches $1,000 Milestone
New $500 match announced
Concerned Trabuco residents have now contributed $1,000 toward covering the cost of newspaper publication of the recall notices of intention. The notices must be published before recall petitions can be circulated. All donations made during the next week will be matched up to a $500 limit by a generous neighbor. If you haven’t yet contributed, your donation made by October 3 will be doubled. If you have already donated, or can’t do so right now, please click the link below and “share” with your friends and neighbors in the water district through email and social media so that as many as possible of the district’s 9,000 registered voters can be reached.
TCWD RATE HIKERS, left to right: Glenn Acosta, Don Chadd, Stephen Dopudja, Edward Mandich, Michael Safranski
Commentary: Where is our money going?
Part 2—Medical insurance benefit for water board
In addition to large hotel bills, sports car rental fees, and PR consultants charges, TCWD residents also pay for Board members’ fringe benefits. At Thursday’s meeting, board members approved a medical insurance package for themselves and family members at a projected cost of $74,000 for the 2023/24 fiscal year. Although they are elected officials performing part time duties, TCWD board members receive medical insurance and other fringe benefits that in 2022 reportedly totaled over $77,000. In the neighboring Santa Margarita Water District, board members receive no health benefits, life insurance, retirement benefits or loans from the district. Our board members cry poor mouth and jack the water rates to unaffordable levels—way higher than neighboring water districts— but what are they doing to reduce their expenses? Will they tighten their belts and share the pain, or just keep spending and forwarding the bills to us?
Santa Margarita Water Board Backs off Capistrano Rate Hikes
Faced With Citizen Outcries, the Board Decides to do the Right Thing
According to the Capistrano Dispatch: "The Santa Margarita Water District Board of Directors unanimously chose to not impose proposed new utility rates for San Juan Capistrano customers that would have resulted in annual costs increasing by 288% for the J.F. Shea Therapeutic Riding Center. During a meeting on Wednesday, July 12, the Board of Directors instead elected to continue discussions following protests over a rate study submitted by staff that recommended high increases for customers that used the least amount of water, which included the Shea Center.”
“Laura Freese, a board member, San Juan resident, and former city councilmember, said the commercial fire meter component needs to be looked at, and the impact from that on customers was not mentioned in the [rate study] executive summary. ‘I just have to say, getting ready for this meeting, I am getting more and more angry,’ Freese said. ‘I’m really angry, because (with) the rate study—it follows the template, and it’s fine—but it’s not done with the people in mind. It’s done with legality in mind and water in mind and not the people.’ Under the rates proposed by staff in the submitted study, the monthly charge would be $175.74 for a 3-inch meter; $274.29 for a 4-inch meter; $546.93 for a 6-inch meter; and $875.41 for an 8-inch meter as of Aug. 1. Meters 10 inches or longer would be charged $1,313.93 a month. The meters do not currently have any monthly costs.”
Same scenario as in TCWD—a staff rate study recommending outrageous water bill hikes and massive public outcry at a standing-room-only public hearing—but with a different ending. The SMWD board chose to do the right thing—listen to its customers, question the rate study submitted by the staff, and rescind the excess charges. In stark contrast, the TCWD board unanimously voted to uncritically rubber-stamp its rate study that called for tripling and quadrupling customers’ water bills over the next 5 years with no analysis or consideration of customers’ ability to pay. Sitting like 5 bumps on a log at the June 29 public hearing, these board members turned a deaf ear to residents pleading for affordable water, then sent them home with an hour-long lecture on how fortunate they were to be living in the TCWD. Was it too much to expect at least one of these elected taxpayer representatives to have cracked the book, glanced inside, performed a basic sanity check and said “ Wow, $457 a month meter charge! Something’s not right here!”
Previous “Where our money’s going” Commentary Retracted
Last week’s commentary highlighted the board’s hiring of a new public relations consultant to develop a “Strategic Communications Plan” aimed, among other goals, at selling customers on exorbitant rate increases. We questioned why a water agency monopoly with captive customers would need a PR firm to promote its products. It now appears—and must be admitted—that our skepticism was misplaced. Several TCWD customers have responded favorably to the district’s new $32,000 outreach campaign, and have in fact shared their responses with us. Here is a sample:
“Ever since I was a colt, I never drank water. I always drank wine. However, after reading a Strategic Communication from the Trabuco Canyon Water District touting the merits of their potable water, I decided to try a sip. It was so good that I have now switched to drinking TCWD water exclusively. It costs more than the wine, of course, and my neighbor in the corral across the road says his is just as good and costs only half as much. But I say, ‘you get what you pay for,’ plus the cool color palette is worth the extra money.”
--Stewball the Racehorse, Trabuco Canyon