WESTMINSTER : Council Backs Hikes in Water, Service Fees

After more than an hourlong public hearing, the City Council voted 4-1 this week to pass a resolution supportive of a hike in water rates and services fees but did not adopt a proposed 16-cent increase.

Instead, the council will review the current rate as it considers the city budget, which is expected to be ready for adoption later this month.

Councilman Frank Fry Jr., who cast the dissenting vote in protest of the proposed rate, called the council’s decision to wait for the adoption of the city budget “a fiscally bad move.”

“The city will have to subsidize everyone . . . until (the budget) is passed,” he said.

Fry said his vote was in support of the Financial Review Committee, which had spent months formulating a new rate.

The goal of the committee, which is made up of business leaders and residents, is to find ways to cut city spending.

The proposed rate of 89 cents per unit (100 cubic feet or 748 gallons) represented an increase from 73 cents, which has been in place the past nine months. In May, 1991, the cost soared to $1.26 a unit--among the highest in the county--in an effort to increase badly needed revenue.

City Finance Director Brian Mayhew stopped short of saying that the city was subsidizing residents’ water bills but said it is “artificially holding (the rate) down at 73 cents, which is too low.”

Mayhew attributed the rate hike to an increase in water costs and an improvement project that includes an overhaul of the entire water system.

Of the two dozen residents present, 10 spoke in opposition of the proposed higher rate, with many of them threatening to hold council members’ votes against them at the polls this November. All the council members except Craig Schweisinger have terms ending this year.

The speakers, most of them elderly who said they lived on fixed incomes, argued that the increase was not necessary and would affect them adversely.

But under the new resolution, which went into effect Wednesday, residents over age 62 with a combined household income of $12,000 could qualify for the “lifeline rate,” which is 70% of the existing rate. The exemption already covers about 500 residents, Mayhew said.

Should the proposed increase be later adopted, the lifeline rate would stand at 62 cents per unit.