Los Altos City Council Approves Sewer Service Charge

 By Katherine Hafner

The Los Altos City Council unanimously voted to approve a new sewer service charge Tuesday night, adding a new charge – called a base charge – for parcel owners to pay with their next and subsequent property taxes.

The change means the introduction of a new sewer service base rate charge starting at $209 this year, and increasing by 7 percent each subsequent year for five years.
The city’s new "hybrid" model for sewer service rates reflects the city's need to make up for lost revenue, especially in light of a recent trend of decreased water use from residents in the county.

The change includes decreasing an already-existing sewer use charge, which charges parcel owners per unit of estimated sewer use. This per-unit charge would then increase annually in accordance with rates set in the resolution.

Jim Gustafson, public works director for the city of Los Altos, said the city estimates sewer use for the whole year by measuring the amount of water used in the three wettest months.

One person, Joe McDonald, showed up to advocate against the charge at a public hearing prior to the council’s decision.

“If I were to not use any water, my rate would go up, just with the base rate, 211 percent what I’ve averaged over three years,” McDonald said during the public comment session of the hearing on the sewer charge. “I hope council will give us a rate that’s reasonable.”

McDonald and his wife have lived in Los Altos for 14 years, and said they were surprised more people did not show up to protest the change.

Gustafson said the city would need a little more than 50 percent of the city’s parcel owners – more than 5,500 people – to express verbal or written protest in order to halt the city’s approval of the charge.

By the time of the public hearing, the city had received 10 formal protests, Gustafson said.

The base charge is set to automatically increase each year for the first five years, beginning with 2013-14. For instance, the charge increases from $209 the first year to $209.45 the next year, and then $230.42 for 2015-16. You can see the full proposal, including the rate charts, here.

The rates have been set assuming a 3 percent rate of inflation in construction and maintenance costs, and that the city’s capital improvement program will proceed as planned to spend about $2 million per year, Gustafson said.

“We kind of leveled the rates over a five-year period,” he said. “Such that we will be able to meet expenses and maintain about 20 percent in reserves and use that to stabilize these rates.”

Gustafson said the reason Los Altos wanted to create the new sewer service charge is because the former model left the city short of revenue.

“The introduction of the base charge is to make the rate fairer by ensuring that all customers that use the sewer system pay at least a minimum amount required … to pay for what they generate from their house,” he said. “By putting a minimum charge in we capture that minimum cost.” 

A public notice about the sewer charge and public hearing was sent to parcel owners 45 days ago, as well as being posted in the Los Altos Town Crier and online, Gustafson said.

Ludwig Bicken, a Los Altos resident for the past 45 years, left Tuesday’s meeting disheartened by the council’s decision. He said he did not file a written protest, because he didn’t know he could – but that he would have had he known because he thinks the amount of the charge is “outrageous.”

Gustafson said most cities in Santa Clara County currently have a sewer base charge that is fixed.

He added that many cities, like Sunnyvale, are considering or planning to adopt a similar “hybrid model.”