Garden Grove Water Rates Will Go on Ballot

The city will let residents decide early next year whether to change how they pay for their water or leave the system the way it is.

Councilman Bob Dinsen has proposed a water rate change that he said would save money for the typical customer by ending the current practice of using water revenue for other expenses. But other officials contend that his plan would actually cost most residents and all businesses more money.

The City Council this week voted 4 to 0, with Dinsen abstaining, to put the issue on the March, 1996, ballot.

“It’s clear the initiative is not going to cut rates as [Dinsen] said,” said Councilman Mark Leyes, who supported putting both options on the ballot.

Dinsen countered that figures presented to the council by city staff are not accurate, and he dismissed the analysis as “a lot of malarkey.”

Dinsen’s plan has wide support, garnering 7,200 signatures in a petition drive earlier this year. It would require the city to charge property owners for water solely according to the number of cubic feet they use.

The initiative would also limit the city’s use of water rate revenue to water-related expenses and would reduce by nearly 40% the amount the city spends for overhead such as legal advice and consulting fees.

However, the city staff’s analysis indicates that Dinsen’s plan would leave the Water Department with a $835,424 deficit in the first year, a shortfall that would have to made up by raising water rates.

Under Dinsen’s system, the city’s largest users--the Garden Grove Unified School District and a few industrial concerns--would carry the heaviest financial load, City Manager George Tindall said.

Already facing decline revenues because of shrinking sales tax collections, the city can ill afford a big deficit in its Water Department, Tindall said.

He suggested that the city consider getting out of the water business altogether by selling the system to a private company, a transaction that could bring in as much as $60 million, he said.