Meiners Oaks Water Rates Hiked

John Brock on his six-acre Meiners Oaks citrus ranch, which has been in his family for 70 years

By Daryl Kelley
Directors of the Meiners Oaks County Water District approved a new budget this week, imposing the first round of fee hikes that would increase the water rate paid by a typical residential customer nearly two and a half times in four years, a boost officials said would still leave the tiny district’s fees the lowest in the Ojai Valley.
New rates would also make the typical agricultural fee about four times greater over four years, a hike some farmers said could limit production or put them out of business.
The new water rates take effect July 1, as the 2008-2009 fiscal year begins.
The immediate impact of the new fees will be modest for most customers — hiking the base rate for residential users from the current $21.20 a month to $28.52 for the coming year. But the fee escalates to $50.41 a month in four years.
For farmers, the hit comes quicker, with the average monthly cost for a customer with a 2-inch meter irrigating five acres spiraling upward from $193 now to $457 beginning next month to $759 in four years.
Customers had a chance to challenge the increases at a hearing on Tuesday evening, but only a handful showed up at the public hearing.
John and Marsha Brock, whose six-acre farm on La Luna has been in the family for more than 70 years, protested the elimination of a long-standing low rate for agriculture.
“My dad set up this board 40 years ago,” said John Brock, who has more than 1,800 producing trees. “There has always been an agricultural rate.”
And Marsha Brock told the board that her family repeatedly gets offers from Los Angeles residents wanting to buy their ranch. With the higher water fees, they may be forced to sell, she said.
“We are going to domestic water, so we can get rid of all the trees, or sell,” she said. “This isn’t what we want … This (ranch) is what Ojai has been all about.”
A water district consultant told the Brocks that under a new interpretation of state law, the district has no choice but to treat all customers equally and charge the full cost of providing service, even if the customer is a farmer.
In all, the district received 91 written protests of the rate increases from customers, far fewer than the majority needed to block it. All property owners in the district were notified of the change in April.
The Meiners Oaks district provides water for more than 1,100 residences, 33 agricultural users and several dozen businesses and institutions such as schools, churches and nonprofit organizations. It draws its water from four wells along the Ventura River, and buys backup supplies from the Casitas reservoir during dry periods.
On Tuesday, directors approved a new $1.04-million budget for the struggling district, relying on reserves because district income fell about $185,000 short of what was needed to pay for basic services and to begin to fix an aging infrastructure. It will be the fourth year in a row that the district has been in the red because of soaring maintenance costs.
Without a sharp fee increase, the district would have been bankrupt in four years, a consultant had warned.
“There has been one rate increase in 24 years,” said board President Bill Reynolds. “The state of the system is in such disarray … we’re not able to balance the budget. We’re trying to catch up.”
Even with the increase, Reynolds said the district’s financial future is dicey, because it is spreading needed increases over four years to make them more palatable, instead of imposing them all right away.
“It hurts us to do this, but we have to plan for the future,” said Director Carrie Mattingly. “We don’t have any option except to go out of business.”
The board delayed a rate increase last November because of the threat of a lawsuit by farmers and taxpayer advocates, who said the district’s budget was being illegally balanced on the back of the district’s few agricultural users.
Officials said the new, simpler proposal is fair and removes any basis for a successful suit.
Since 2004, the district has drawn down reserves from $2 million to $1.36 million to repair crumbling pipes, valves, meters and tanks. It now faces replacement of a failed half-million-dollar water tank and a faulty $40,000 pump.
Even some of those hurt most by the increases — the farmers — said it is evident that a sharp rate increase was needed to save the district, and avert even higher fees from another provider.
But fruit grower Camille Sears said the board is going too far in its four-year hike of agricultural rates.
“I think the first year is fair,” Sears said in an interview. “That’s two and a half times what we pay now. That’s going to hurt. But beyond that it’s ridiculous.”
By Sears’ calculation, she now pays $135 per acre-foot of water, and that would increase to $640 in four years. That compares with $365 an acre-foot proposed by the large Casitas Municipal Water District for farm users and about $445 an acre-foot residential users would be charged under a new Casitas plan.
“So we’ll be paying more than most residences in the Ojai Valley,” Sears said. “It doesn’t make sense. There’s no way any grower I know can afford to pay that.”
So if the rate hike plan of the Meiners Oaks district remains in place for the next four years, Sears said she would pull out her 1,300 fruit and citrus trees and sell them — and perhaps replace them with hardy melons that need little water.
Sears threatened a lawsuit when the original rate increase was proposed last fall, because fees weren’t based on actual service, as state law requires.
District officials maintained that its new, simpler rates would be fair because everyone would pay the same for water, with the difference in fees being based only on the size of a customer’s water meter and how much water is used.
That would jibe with a state Supreme Court decision two years ago interpreting a 1996 statewide proposition that requires that all water customers be treated equally and that they pay for the cost to deliver their water, district officials said.
And they said that if things improve during the next four years, adjustments can be made to reduce the hit on those bearing the burden.