Water costs hit some users
As long as the water disappears after you rinse the sink, take a shower or flush the toilet, you probably don’t think too much about the cost, especially considering the unpleasant alternative.
Maybe that’s one reason so few Yorba Linda Water District customers protested a potential doubling of the monthly $3.50 sewer charge for single-family residences recently.
Only 21 letters, three phone calls and two in-person comments—out of about 14,540 ratepayers—were received; and no protests were aired at an 8:30 a.m. public hearing.
The new rate, beginning Saturday, is $5.50 per month for most residential users, along with a “discretionary” Consumer Price Index increase capped at five percent each year, instead of a proposed $7 monthly charge.
While the independent public agency provides water service to all but a few hundred Yorba Lindans, only sewers generally west of Fairmont Boulevard are district-owned.
The city owns eastside sewers serving 6,465 parcels with an annual $19.47 fee added to property tax bills. An overlap section with 2,980 accounts is city-owned but district-serviced at the latter’s new $66 yearly rate.
Residents and businesses in the so-called Locke Ranch area, a narrow 400-acre corridor on both sides of northern Fairmont Boulevard that extends south to Imperial Highway at Esperanza Road, are hit with a double whammy.
These 1,565 homes, businesses and schools pay the higher water district sewer fee and buy more expensive water from the private Golden State Water Company, which serves most of Placentia.
The city would consider selling its sewers to the water district, but water officials won’t pay for them, although they’d accept the sewers at no cost and charge their higher sewer rate, according to recent water board meeting minutes.
And there’s Councilman Hank Wedaa’s longtime dream of merging water district functions with city government, which he’s proposed in 1970, 1996 and this year.
But a mixture of water and sewer delivery infrastructure involving two public agencies and a private firm appears to cause little concern to residents, as long as clean water flows from the tap and waste water empties into a functioning sewer system.
A FINAL NOTE
Removing city commissioners before their terms expire is rare but not unknown in Yorba Linda’s near 40-year municipal history.
The recent 3-2 council vote to dismiss 28-year veteran Carl Boznanski and six-year member Michael Haack from the Planning Commission mirrors a 3-2 action to fire Robert Meador and Roseann Roberts from the commission in 1970.
Interestingly, Councilman Hank Wedaa joined the majority in both votes; and both votes reflected unhappiness with “out-of-touch” commissioners by three new council members.
Also, then-Mayor John Gullixson engineered a 1993 purge of Parks and Recreation Commissioners Wendell Bainter, Carol Cantwell, Dean Clark and Susan Klingaman on a 3-1 vote. They had criticized the Gullixson-led council in a letter to the Star.
Maybe that’s one reason so few Yorba Linda Water District customers protested a potential doubling of the monthly $3.50 sewer charge for single-family residences recently.
Only 21 letters, three phone calls and two in-person comments—out of about 14,540 ratepayers—were received; and no protests were aired at an 8:30 a.m. public hearing.
The new rate, beginning Saturday, is $5.50 per month for most residential users, along with a “discretionary” Consumer Price Index increase capped at five percent each year, instead of a proposed $7 monthly charge.
While the independent public agency provides water service to all but a few hundred Yorba Lindans, only sewers generally west of Fairmont Boulevard are district-owned.
The city owns eastside sewers serving 6,465 parcels with an annual $19.47 fee added to property tax bills. An overlap section with 2,980 accounts is city-owned but district-serviced at the latter’s new $66 yearly rate.
Residents and businesses in the so-called Locke Ranch area, a narrow 400-acre corridor on both sides of northern Fairmont Boulevard that extends south to Imperial Highway at Esperanza Road, are hit with a double whammy.
These 1,565 homes, businesses and schools pay the higher water district sewer fee and buy more expensive water from the private Golden State Water Company, which serves most of Placentia.
The city would consider selling its sewers to the water district, but water officials won’t pay for them, although they’d accept the sewers at no cost and charge their higher sewer rate, according to recent water board meeting minutes.
And there’s Councilman Hank Wedaa’s longtime dream of merging water district functions with city government, which he’s proposed in 1970, 1996 and this year.
But a mixture of water and sewer delivery infrastructure involving two public agencies and a private firm appears to cause little concern to residents, as long as clean water flows from the tap and waste water empties into a functioning sewer system.
A FINAL NOTE
Removing city commissioners before their terms expire is rare but not unknown in Yorba Linda’s near 40-year municipal history.
The recent 3-2 council vote to dismiss 28-year veteran Carl Boznanski and six-year member Michael Haack from the Planning Commission mirrors a 3-2 action to fire Robert Meador and Roseann Roberts from the commission in 1970.
Interestingly, Councilman Hank Wedaa joined the majority in both votes; and both votes reflected unhappiness with “out-of-touch” commissioners by three new council members.
Also, then-Mayor John Gullixson engineered a 1993 purge of Parks and Recreation Commissioners Wendell Bainter, Carol Cantwell, Dean Clark and Susan Klingaman on a 3-1 vote. They had criticized the Gullixson-led council in a letter to the Star.
posted by Jim Drummond at 12:00 AM
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