Press Release
Yesterday the City Council voted 8-1 to dramatically increase water rates in the City of San Diego despite angry public comments by dozens of ratepayers and 8,557 signed protest forms. Councilman Scott Sherman cast the lone dissenting vote.
The council’s action will increase rates by 14.75 percent over two years – a 7.25 percent increase in calendar year 2014 and a 7.5 percent increase in 2015.
“This water rate increase hurts working families and is absolutely unnecessary. It could have been avoided if the City would have taken additional cost-cutting measures or used cash reserves,” noted Councilman Sherman.
In addition, Councilman Sherman expressed concerns regarding how the rate increases were structured. “We are not being transparent with these rates. This proposal recommends that 5 percent of the increase for 2014 and 4.75 percent of the increase for 2015 be used in order to recover prior year County Water Authority Pass-through rates which would retroactively charge customers for the projected lost revenue from not increasing rates for the last two years.”
Sherman also noted that the Cost of Service Study uses “recent historical trends” to forecast zero new water connections in the City for both 2014 and 2015 despite the fact that current trends show that there is development going on in this City with new communities like Civita in Mission Valley being built right now that will add over 3,000 new units. This reduces forecasted revenues and helps create an artificial need for a rate increase.
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