Council Formally Approves Sewer Rate Hike

It took them more than two years of infighting and $1 million in expert opinions, but city leaders finally formally agreed Tuesday on how to pay for the upgrade of the Hill Canyon Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Following a brief public hearing Tuesday night, the City Council unanimously approved an increase of $5.20 a month in residents’ average sewer bills to pay for the $71.4-million renovation project. Earlier this month, council members broke their long-standing stalemate and voted to conceptually approve the rate hike, but it needed to undergo the scrutiny of a hearing.

In the end, the two-year council battle proved to be a dud with residents. Only one person--Nick E. Quidwai--spoke at the public hearing. And his position was already well-known.

“I have been opposed to this Rolls-Royce sewer plant since its inception,” he said.

The rate increase and overall plan are essentially the same proposal that city Public Works Director Don Nelson initially recommended in 1995--a topic that led to much bickering by the city’s two warring political camps as each sought to prove it had acted correctly in the impasse.

Mayor Judy Lazar and Councilmen Andy Fox and Mike Markey supported Nelson’s plan throughout, but the rate hike needed to pay for it required a four-fifths vote. They said previously that they saw no differences between the plan proposed in 1995 and the one that was just approved--other than the fact that Thousand Oaks lost two years’ of increased sewer revenues, which means that the city must now take out $6.2 million more in bonds.

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Councilwomen Elois Zeanah and Linda Parks, who had opposed the plan because they considered it too costly--and still do--defended their decision to vote for it anyway. They argued that they were able to improve on the plan after receiving a few concessions from their political opponents, and planned to further scrutinize the project as it goes along.

In addition to raising residents’ rates, the council also increased developers’ sewer connection fees from $3,900 to $5,300 to help pay for the improvements.

That raise has led to a legal battle with Operating Engineers, one of two developers of Dos Vientos Ranch.

Attorneys for Operating Engineers contend that because they already had an agreement with Thousand Oaks detailing how much they would pay the city, they cannot be made to pay higher connection fees.

City Atty. Mark Sellers believes that the city has every right to raise the fees.

“It is our position that the development agreement simply did not cap the city’s ability to raise [connection] fees,” he said.