Bad finances and water systems in need of upgrading.
They’re mounting problems for Orange County’s water suppliers.
And residents are the ones being forced to pay.
Joining a growing trend of OC water agencies raising residents’ water bills for those reasons over public protests, Garden Grove City Council members are hiking bi-monthly water bills from $112 to $146 over the course of five years.
Voting in support of the increase were City Council members Kim Nguyen, John O’Neil, Cindy Tran, Joe Dovinh and Mayor Steve Jones.
Voting against was George Breitigam, who said the increase was too high and that staff should find other ways to fix the problem, rather than placing it on residents.
The decision came after protests by two residents in public comments and 34 written protests from people around town. City staff, citing the existence of nearly 35,000 water accounts in Garden Grove, said those protests were too few to warrant any action.
Council members who supported the rate increase called it a bitter pill that residents would have to swallow.
Here’s a breakdown of the increase:
For typical residential meter sizes, the service charge will go from $33.85 to $43.68, the capital improvements charge from $7.00 to $9.20, and a usage charge of $3.26 to $4.27 per unit of water use up to a maximum use of 33 units.
This would total up to a water bill increase of up to $146.81, by 2028, for the average residential customer on a bi-monthly bill.
Customers with separate fire service lines – which don’t function on a daily basis, but are set up to ensure that if a fire starts, sprinklers can quickly knock it out – will see their fire service rate go from $2.99 to $4.46 by 2028.
It comes after water rate hikes affecting residents in Rancho Santa Margarita, Mission Viejo, Lake Forest and unincorporated south county – and an increase proposal in San Juan Capistrano – have sparked public outrage and even recall efforts, from residents on fixed incomes who question why they’re being expected to shoulder the consequences of water agencies’ bad finances and neglected infrastructure.
More OC water district rate increases are expected over the next few years.
Similarly, in Garden Grove – where the Public Works Department owns and operates the water system that services the city – officials are attributing the rate hikes to aging infrastructure and money problems, highlighted by a consultant they paid to study the problem.
“Without the proposed adjustment in water rates, available reserves will be depleted in a couple of years,” said the city’s water services manager, Samuel Kim, during the City Council’s regular meeting on Tuesday.
He added:
“The current financial condition has caused the Water Enterprise to postpone and delay needed capital replacements and improvement projects.”
Most council members called the rate increase a painful necessity.
“No one on this dais takes increasing fee charges lightly, it’s something we don’t like to do,” said Nguyen before voting “Yes.”
Nguyen continued:
“But we have a fiduciary duty to the city and residents to be able to provide services, and these costs come at a financial disadvantage to the city because we’re paying much more for water than what’s coming in from residents to mitigate that cost.” And we don’t have the financial capability of withstanding that increased cost every single year. That’s what results in increased fees.”
Most of her council colleagues echoed her stance, but one.
“I know we’re not in it to make money. We’re supposed to break even — that’s the whole goal. But this seems like a huge increase to me, more than maybe necessary,” Brietigam said.
He continued, “My experience with taxes is, once fees and taxes go up, if maybe they find they’re higher than they need to be, it never goes back to the taxpayer. It never does. They find some other way to spend the money.”
He added: “I know we need to raise rates. But I’m a no vote on this. I think it’s too much.”