Working To Lower Our Water Rates

Equity in Our Water Rates

Many residents of Live Oak and Carbonera may not realize that they pay more for the water they drink than the residents in the City of Santa Cruz who drink the same water from the same system. Currently, a 14.5% surcharge, is levied to over one-third of the ratepayers in the City’s Water District. Even though non-City residents have been part of the system since 1932, there has been a history of rate surcharges that were not related to the actual cost of delivering the water. Instead, decisions have been made politically as it related to the long abandoned possibility of annexing Live Oak into the City, a long-standing myth that non-City residents don’t pay for water infrastructure, and a lack of representation on the water board that makes the rate setting decisions (which consists only of the City Council). Five years ago, we were paying 27.5% more. I pushed at that time for a rate study, the district claimed they could charge non-City residents more, but they reduced the rate to its current 14.5%. This past Monday, the City of Santa Cruz Water Commission held a meeting during which they discussed the elements that would help craft the next five-year rate plan. Working with Linda Wilshusen, the only non-City representative on the advisory commission, we drafted a memo detailing the history of the charges and presented it to the group. Joined by other leaders in the community, we pressed the case for finally eliminating the surcharge. Linda will be joining me for this week’s Town Hall to talk about the fascinating and disturbing history of these surcharges. You can read the memo here.

TODAY Wednesday, Sept. 16

6 p.m. - 7 p.m.

Please click the link below to join the webinar:

https://zoom.us/j/94413280643

Or Dial: +1 253 215 8782 or +1 669 900 9128 or +1 346 248 7799 or +1 646 558 8656

Webinar ID: 944 1328 0643

In addition to zoom, this meeting can be viewed on my Supervisor Leopold Facebook page. No account is necessary to view on Facebook.

Addressing Sea Level Rise in Santa Cruz

As our community works to recover from the recent fires, we must continue to address the greatest crisis of our time -- climate change. The recent fires may be a preview of what we could face with extreme weather events and their devastating impacts. Rising sea levels threaten our community and coastal way of life at the same time. Critical infrastructure, coastal access, coastal resources and homes are threatened by the increasingly accurate predictions about the rise of ocean levels. I have been working with our Planning staff, colleagues from around the state, and the Coastal Commission on a set of innovative strategies to address the threat and not just simply pretend that we can hold back Mother Nature forever. This week our Board adopted a new Local Coastal Plan that includes a set of policies that recognize our coastal geology, take into account our voter-approved land use policies, and prepare our county to deal with the impacts of sea level rise. This approach promotes good use of science, creates flexibility in our response, and sets a time horizon of 20 years so we can reconfigure the policies based on the latest science. I encourage you to read the policies here. I expect to be joining Supervisors and Council members to present our new strategies and more to the Coastal Commission soon.

Rent and Utility Assistance

While the CZU Lightning Complex fires are just about contained, the rebuilding process is just starting. This Tuesday our Board adopted a set of strategies designed to expedite the rebuilding process for the more than 900 families that lost their homes in the fires. Within days of the start of the fires, I reached out to colleagues across the state who had already experienced devastating fires to ask how they had rebuilt their communities and what they had learned which could help our community. Employing some of these techniques, the County will be hiring a number of contractors so building approval can happen in days rather than months. We are investigating the use of consultants who can address issues like geo-technical reports for a neighborhood, rather than having everyone doing individual reports. Partnering with Fire Districts, the County will look to help people rebuild their homes, even if they do not meet all the requirements that we place for site conditions today. There will still be significant issues related to State requirements, especially with regard to septic systems, potable water, and fire access but the County will relax local requirements where possible in support of these homeowners. You can read more about these strategies here. The most immediate threat is the dangers of massive debris flows due to the burning of soils and the inability of these soils to hold water, even in small amounts. The County has established a good website to help with recovery. You can visit that website here.