DATE: February 5, 2025
TO: Honorable Mayor and City Councilmembers
FROM: Water Utilities Department
TITLE: ACTIONS RELATING TO WATER USER RATES AND WASTEWATER RATES AND IMPLEMENTING A PROTEST PROCEDURE UNDER AB 2257
RECOMMENDATION
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Staff recommends that the City Council introduce ordinances amending Chapters 29 and 37 of the City Code allowing Water and Wastewater rates to be approved by a resolution of the City Council, and introduce an uncodified ordinance to establish a protest procedure under AB 2257, thereby providing an administrative remedy that must be exhausted as a prerequisite to filing a legal challenge to rate changes under Proposition 218.
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BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS
The Oceanside Water Utilities Department (Utility or Department) provides water and wastewater services to residents and commercial customers in the City via an extensive system of treatment plants, pump stations, lift stations, distribution and collections pipelines and appurtenances. The 42 square mile service area of the utility includes five treatment plants and provides water and wastewater services to over 44,000 connected accounts annually.
Water and wastewater services are paid by the consumer on a monthly basis. Presently, changes to rates are brought to City Council at a public hearing, and Council votes to approve or deny rate increases in the form of an ordinance. Staff is recommending that this process change from approval via ordinance to approval via resolution while still holding a public hearing. This change is an administrative/process change, and does not fundamentally diminish ratepayers' ability to protest in any way; the existing 45-day minimum notice of proposed rates and protest period under Proposition 218 would remain.
Previously, California law required the sewer rates be approved by ordinance only, however, the law was changed in 2016 to allow either an ordinance or a resolution. The net benefit from this change is that resolutions ...
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