Rates Sought to Clamp Water Use

Under pressure from the City Council, the Glendale Public Service Commission has asked the city staff to devise a new rate structure to provide water more cheaply to those who conserve during a drought.

Reluctantly, the commission instructed staff members Monday to rework a water conservation proposal it approved in September. On Nov. 7, the council sent the proposed ordinance back to the commission, complaining that it relied entirely on penalties to enforce compliance.

In its original form, the proposed ordinance would have required residents to reduce water use by up to 25% during a drought. Those who failed to meet the goal would be subjected to penalties escalating from a doubling, then quadrupling of their water rates, to the installation of a water-flow restricter and, finally, termination of service.

The commission adopted that plan by a 3-2 vote Sept. 11, the two dissenters favoring a reward system in addition to penalties. The majority, however, said they were concerned that any reward system for water conservation could jeopardize the city’s ability to pay its water bills, which are fixed.

Although they gave Public Services Director W.E. Cameron until Dec. 18 to come up with a flexible rate plan, some commissioners expressed uneasiness with the concept.

“I still don’t know what the council wants us to do,” commissioner Heather Slutsky said. “If council wants to put the city in a position to lose money, then I would be very uncomfortable with that. Council would have to vote on that. I could never vote to put the Public Service Department in a fiscal negative position.”

But commissioners Vahak Petrossian and Jay E. Bondi said at the meeting that a water-rate structure protecting conservers from a fee increase in times of a drought would not hurt the city financially because the plan would make the wasters pay extra on their bill, therefore neutralizing the department’s revenue.

“If you can fine one end, then you can reward the other,” Bondi said.

However, commission chairman Richard Rhone said during a heated discussion with his fellow members that he believed in separating the water rate structure from a water conservation ordinance.

“Rate-making is complicated enough without putting more constraints on it and making it more difficult when it comes time for rate adjustment,” Rhone said. “I really believe that Glendale has a water ordinance in its hip pocket ready to go.”

Cameron said at the meeting that as long as the council wanted the ordinance to give residents incentives to save water, then adding a set rate structure to the plan could persuade the council to adopt the measure.

He said the city’s staff could come back with a draft of a new package to include a water rate structure by the commission’s Dec. meeting.

Slutsky said later that the commission is still divided on the issue.

“Nobody has changed their opinion,” she said. “But staff might come in with something to change the opinion. Until we get more information, we can’t go any further. It’s still all up in the air.”

Glendale receives 80% of its water from the Metropolitan Water District and the rest from its own wells, Cameron said in an earlier interview. He also said that the water district has encouraged its customers to have a water conservation ordinance in preparation for the next drought.

California has just come out of a three-year drought that ended last spring when rain filled Northern California’s reservoirs.

Water district spokesman Jay Malinowski said the district can only rely on its customers’ willingness to pass such an ordinance.

‘We can’t punish them for not having one,” Malinowski said. “We don’t have that power.”