Ojai, Water Company Agree to 30.4% Rate Hike : Drought: The increase will help pay for shortages and planned conservation measures.

After wrangling all year over stiff water rate increases, Ojai and its water seller have agreed to a 30.4% increase.

The Public Utilities Commission will meet Dec. 27 to consider the increase, which would take effect Jan. 1 for most of the 2,700 Ojai customers. Another increase of 7% would occur in 1992, followed by a 4% increase in 1993.

The increase would generate $476,800 more for the company over the next three years instead of the $558,000 that the company first sought in February.

“We didn’t get what we were asking for, but that’s not unusual,” said Floyd E. Wicks, president of Southern California Water Co., the city’s water supplier since 1929. “It’s nice to see the commission takes the feelings of the community into account.”

If approved, the average household water bill of $28.72 will increase an average of about 23% to $35.10.

“It’s still a major increase and will mean higher water rates,” Ojai City Manager Andrew Belknap said. “But, by our involvement, I think we’ve been able to make it a better package.”

Wicks said the new rate structure will be the only tiered-rate billing system the San Dimas-based company has for any of its 230,500 customers in 16 Southern California communities.

“It probably won’t be the last, now that we’re going into a five-year drought,” he said.

Without the City Council’s intervention, low water users, the elderly and those on fixed incomes would have been hit harder by the original 24.6% increase that the company sought. Another 10.7% increase had also been proposed in 1992, followed by 4% in 1993.

The total increase over the next three years still remains at 41%, but average water customers will not see their bills increase as much, Belknap said.

The utility had planned to load the original increase onto the average residential customer’s basic service fee of $5.75 a month.

The City Council, however, lodged a complaint with the PUC in March, saying the plan did little to encourage water conservation.

The company’s officers announced in June that they would seek the commission’s approval for an alternate billing format to charge customers higher rates according to how much water they use.

An administrative law judge for the state commission held a hearing in Ojai to listen to concerns of city officials, ratepayers, commission staff and company officers about both proposals. The judge’s decision for the 30% rate increase is a compromise, officials said.

The new water rates are needed to cover higher operating costs and a planned 10% reduction in overall sales due to water conservation efforts.

The company’s last rate increase for Ojai was approved in 1986.

The 2,600 customers of Casitas Municipal Water District will also see a 2.5% rate increase on their January bills.

The Casitas district, which serves the Ojai Valley and western Ventura, approved an annual rate increase last April to cover operating costs of a new water treatment plant scheduled to open by 1993.

Increases of 2.5% will take effect each January for the next seven years.