Despite voters’ OK, Costa Mesa sanitary district ‘not interested’ in merger talks with Mesa Water
The Costa Mesa Sanitary District has no interest in meeting with the Mesa Water District to discuss the concept of merging the two agencies, even after voters approved an advisory measure on the topic in last month’s election.
In a letter dated Dec. 14, sanitary district board President Mike Scheafer wrote that his district is willing to talk about how the agencies can work together but “is not interested in meeting with Mesa Water to discuss consolidation.”
His letter was in response to a missive from Mesa Water board President Ethan Temianka, who pitched a sit-down meeting between the two agencies following the passage of Measure TT, which Mesa Water put on the Nov. 8 ballot asking voters whether they want the two districts to look into a possible merger.
The measure passed with 54.7% of the vote.
“Measure TT’s passage provides a clear signal that local voters support pursuing consolidation of CMSD and Mesa Water into one district to provide services for the community,” Temianka wrote Dec. 9. “While Measure TT is nonbinding, it is a preliminary step to a formal consolidation process by the Orange County Local [Agency] Formation Commission, which would further study the issue and receive public input.”
Such a meeting, Temianka wrote, would be open to the public.
A study this year by Mesa Water consultant Arcadis U.S. Inc. concluded that consolidating with the sanitary district could result in up to $15.6 million in one-time savings and as much as $2.7 million in additional savings annually.
The savings could result in a $650 rebate for each ratepayer and up to a 28% reduction in wastewater rates, according to the study.
Officials in the sanitary district have repeatedly rejected those findings. In his letter, Scheafer blasted the study as “severely flawed.”
Sanitary district board members declined Mesa Water’s invitation to participate in the study, raising concerns about the level of input they had in shaping the effort and how fast the process was moving.
CMSD also has been critical of Measure TT, which Scheafer said “misinformed and misguided the public into believing that the savings it [the Arcadis study] purported … would in fact occur via consolidation.”
“We strongly believe any resources or money spent on consolidation at this time is a misuse of public funds,” he said.
Scheafer said the Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, is scheduled to conduct a new round of municipal service reviews, or MSRs, in 2018.
Those reviews are state-mandated studies of “future growth and how our local agencies are planning for that growth within our municipal services and infrastructure systems,” according to LAFCO’s website.
LAFCO would have the final say on any proposed merger between the sanitary district and Mesa Water.
“We believe LAFCO is the appropriate agency for determining optimum governance structures through its MSR process, where an unbiased and in-depth analysis is performed that takes into consideration all agencies,” sanitary district General Manager Scott Carroll said Wednesday.
Despite the sanitary district’s reluctance, Mesa Water “remains open to a joint meeting,” the agency’s external affairs manager, Stacy Taylor, said Tuesday.
“Measure TT’s majority support, combined with the potential consolidation cost savings, merits further pursuit of consolidation, which is what the public expects and deserves from this election outcome,” Taylor said.
The sanitary district’s rejection of a meeting to discuss the matter “disregards our customers’ vote and clear desire to reduce the size and cost of local government,” she added.
Twitter: @LukeMMoney
