274 Water Rate Increase Protest Letters Deemed “Invalid or Duplicate” – Running the Numbers
By Terry Miller
Published: Sunday, August 1st, 2010
By Terry Miller
Outraged residents who protested a near 40% Water Rate hike in Sierra Madre won last week, or so they thought when City Clerk Nancy Shollenberger said she was “absolutely, positively” certain of the new numbers which indicated a victory for those opposed to the hike:
A press release was issued by Sierra Madre Clerk Nancy Shollenberger Sunday July 18. “Pursuant to the City’s Guidelines For the Submission and Tabulation of Protests, I, Nancy Sue Shollenberger, duly elected City Clerk of the City of Sierra Madre, have tabulated and determined the validity of the written protests to the City’s proposed water fee increase. I hereby find and give notice that there were 1,898 written protests. Accordingly, a majority of parcel owners, who would have been impacted by the proposed fee increase, have submitted written protests.
In addition to the above-mentioned 1,898 written protests, I also noted that the City Clerk’s Office received an additional 151 written protests which were duplicates, and/or did not qualify to be counted, two letters requesting their letters be withdrawn and one letter in favor of the water rate increase, which were not tabulated, along with 26 received after the deadline imposed by the City Council.
Nancy Sue Shollenberger
City Clerk
P.S.The City Clerk did not have access to the Assessor’s Parcel Numbers List/Owner’s Names. If this list is made available to her, she will be happy to check the list again.”Shollenberger declined to comment Monday on the discrepancy between her first count and the second tabulation completed Monday. She did say she was “absolutely, positively” certain of the new numbers”
City Clerk Shollenberger reads the results last Tuesday
Now, apparently after further examination at total of only 1,719 valid protests were apparently received against the hike – 129 short of the 1,848 needed for a majority to defeat the proposal, City Clerk Shollenberger said.
Now, according to Shollenberger there were 274 invalid protests or duplicates, she said.
A recent heated public hearing was held in which the majority of speakers protested the proposed hike criticized the amount of the increases; with some saying the hikes would particularly hurt those on fixed incomes.
Under the rate hike structure, the maximum rate increase would be about 37.5 percent over five years; others would see increases of just over 36 percent to 33 percent depending on the amount of water used and size of meter.
The city will now attempt a public relations water awareness program for residents to help customers understand why the increases are important with a seriously aging infrastructure.
Nany Walsh had some serious questions for Sierra Madre's City Clerk regarding the tabulations - Photos by Terry Miller
The City Council received a report regarding the numbers from Shollenberger at Tuesday’s regular meeting. The report seemed to confuse many residents and pose more questions than give any answers or clarity to the process.
There seemed to be confusion as to the number of water meters at I Carter, and how they managed to get so many protest letters in. It seemed suspicious to some that some protest letters were not counted when delivered slightly late.
A very forceful and eloquent Faye Angus went to the podium and stated that the city council should realize that the number of “votes” against the proposed rate increase exceeded the number of votes each new council member received during the recent election. Admonishing the council she said, “You should take this VERY seriously, the people have spoken.”
David Derbyshire was next up at the podium and pointed out that he was ready to be really angry about the situation but others had already expressed their concerns so he kept his comments brief. He did, however, point out that the protest letters received were not in fact ‘votes’ as Angus has insinuated.
A visibly angry Heather Allen stepped up to the podium and said that she felt the city had no right to have the city clerk and the city manager attending the protest letter counting and generally voiced her dismay over the entire process and how the city council handled the whole process in general.
It seemed to be a general consensus that the people had spoken and that all in all the protest letters and awareness of how not to send a complicated and confusing water rate hike proposal, was educational and hopefully the city can now move ahead with the business at hand.
Whether or not any rate hike is implemented remains to be seen. It seems that there are still more questions than answers and the numbers seemed to confuse even the mayor.
Mary Ann MacGillivray questioned the amount of money spent on psychological evaluations for potential employees. She said the dollar figures quoted in staff reports seemed extremely high for such HR items. However, she was delighted that the retired water tender from the fire dept was being donated to Baldwin Lake volunteer fire dept. with a great need for the equipment.
Staff said a water hike is needed to upgrade the city’s aging water system some of which is 90 plus years old, address the reduction of groundwater, and avert the city from draining its water fund reserves as well as evasion on its bond notes.
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