Council Panel OKs Refund of Sewer Fees

A Los Angeles City Council committee Wednesday approved a plan to refund up to $7 million to as many as 30,000 households--most of them in Latino neighborhoods in the Northeast San Fernando Valley--for sewer services they never received.

Households could get up to $950 each under the plan, which must be approved by the full council and the mayor.

If approved, pamphlets inviting residents to apply for the refunds will be included with water bills sent out in the next few months.

It will be the “most-read insert in Department of Water and Power history,” predicted Frederick Hoeptner, a city engineer.

And those who don’t read the pamphlets will “hear about the free money on the streets,” said Heather Dalmont, an aide to Councilman Joel Wachs, whose Valley district has most of those eligible for refunds.

Since 1978, the DWP has been charging all water customers for sewer services whether or not they were connected to the system.

Users of septic tanks and other disposal systems could have applied for an exemption, but many failed to do so because they did not read or could not understand the annual inserts, which were printed only in English, Dalmont said.

Under the plan given initial approval by the council’s Public Works Committee Wednesday, both the pamphlets and future annual inserts on the exemption process will be printed in English and Spanish.

Hoeptner said 23,000 customers have applied for an exemption since 1978. But many did not get a full refund because the City Charter limits reimbursements to fees paid during the year before the exemption request.

But a city attorney’s opinion released Wednesday said that a new state law voids the Charter provision, clearing the way for many of the 23,000 to apply for an additional refund.

City officials say they do not have a firm estimate of how many households are affected or how much the program will cost.

Estimates of eligible households range from 10,000 to 30,000, and estimates of the total cost vary from $4 million to $7 million. The money will come from the city’s sewer fund reserve.