What's at stake?
The proposed increases, according to city documents, show that the increase would result in an additional $1.77 each month to a typical resident’s water bill. Sewage costs would likely decrease by about a dollar.
The city’s utility rates for water and sewage services have not increased in nearly a decade.
The proposed increases, according to city documents, show that the increase would result in an additional $1.77 each month to a typical resident’s water bill. Sewage costs would likely decrease by about a dollar.
But in a 6-1 vote Thursday, the Fresno City Council delayed a vote to initiate the price hike process until after next month’s midterm election, citing a desire to see how local residents vote on two critical government funding measures.
“It’s really hard to make a decision today without knowing what our financial future looks like,” said Councilmember Mike Karbassi. Though there was much back and forth from the dais about how to vote on the matter, the two-hour-long hearing concluded with most councilmembers sharing Karbassi’s feelings.
The decision to kick the vote down the road was broached earlier this week by Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias, who said he believed the utility rate increases were at least tangentially related to the city’s Southeast Development Area plans.
But the bulk of Thursday’s discussions shifted when city staff said that, although they need to increase soon, the city could continue to operate with its current utility rates until the end of this fiscal year, which would be June 2027.
Despite some potential political squeamishness among councilmembers, four of whom are currently campaigning for other offices on next month’s ballot, Fresno City Councilmember Nick Richardson, the lone dissenting vote at Thursday’s meeting, urged his colleagues to rip the band-aid since the price increases are essentially inevitable.
“If it’s the responsible thing to do, then it’s the responsible thing to do,” Richardson said. “I don’t want to see us wait 16 years again because everyone wants to kick the can down the road, and all of a sudden we get a flashing bank notification.”
However, amid a historically poor economy, most of Fresno’s councilmembers argued this was simply the wrong time to further burden city consumers.
“There’s nothing today that provides substantial evidence that the department will run out of cash if this process begins in January,” Arias said.
And rate hikes might not be the only option, but city utilities leaders described it as the best choice.
City staff said that are levers they can pull, like dipping into the reserves or general fund, to help cover a potential shortfall. But such measures, they said, come at a huge expense to other city services and programs, in particular their bonding capacity.
“Utilizing reserves to further delay rate increases is not generally a financially prudent practice, and is pretty counter to what’s done in the industry overall,” said Paul Amico, the director of the Fresno Department of Public Utilities.
Fresno City Council President Nelson Esparza was less tepid in his response to those potential alternatives.
“I can’t believe we’re discussing using general fund money,” said Esparza, who also terms out at the end of this year. “I would advise this council, and any future council that comes after us not to do that. It’s a terrible, terrible idea.”
The council tabled the item until their Nov. 5 meeting, two days after the November election. They’ll hope to learn by then the fate of Measure S, the countywide transportation plan that aims to succeed Measure C, and Measure D, the city’s general tax that city leaders hastily placed on the ballot at a time when the former measure’s future was in doubt.
The rate increases are legally required to follow the state’s standards set in Proposition 218, which was approved by voters in 1996. Whenever council votes on a rate increase, a 45-day public engagement period is required before a decisive vote.
City unanimously opposes county’s efforts to privatize Fresno’s libraries
The Fresno City Council voted to oppose the county’s efforts to privatize the local library system.
The city’s resolution to oppose was first announced by Karbassi in a news conference last week.
Fresno County’s decision to research library privatization has been a hotly contested issue since it was first discussed earlier this year at the Fresno County Board of Supervisors.
Although the county has explored the option in prior years, the current board of supervisors has likely punted a vote on the matter until next year, when there will be up to three newly elected supervisors on the five-person board.
Privatizing the library will also be difficult, as such a vote requires a supermajority of four of the five supervisors to pass. The current board does not have the votes to make it happen, and they scrapped a presentation on privatization that was scheduled for their Oct. 20 meeting.
Still, dozens of librarians and supporters of the library are expected to show up to the board meeting that day to protest the issue during the public comment period.
“Despite their claims that privatization will not be discussed, we plan to fill the halls so they know we are not letting this go,” said Shannon Wise, the president of the Friends of the Fresno County Library, in a statement shared Thursday following the city council’s vote.
In the statement, Wise also said that the county has received 175 letters protesting the privatization of the county library.
