Thumbnail photo: Margaret Sargent on Monday speaks out in opposition of Crescent City’s plan to increase water and sewer rates. | Photo by Aisling Bludworth
A Proposition 218 protest failed to halt water and sewer rate increases in Crescent City on Monday despite an effort to collect signatures by a local group who says residents can’t afford them.
Though he didn’t specify if it was water or sewer, county resident David Olkowski, said at $95.38, his bill currently consumes about 16.95% of his social security income. It’s set to account for about 30% of his monthly social security at $171.92 when the rate adjustments take effect next month.
“The assistance we get from the many food banks are dwarfed by these rate increases,” he said. “The savings from our gardens, growing vegetables, fruit trees and produce, berries, are dwarfed by these rate increases.”
There were some residents who said they understood why rates have to increase. Rebecca Dyke, a pastor at the Crescent City Church of the Nazarene and a representative of True North Organizing Network’s Housing Leader Team, read a statement from that organization.
“In a time when the cost of living continues to stretch working families’ budgets to their limits, any additional financial burden is incredibly difficult to absorb,” she said. “However, after examining the candid reality of our city’s aging infrastructure and the financial health of our utility systems, True North Organizing Network supports the proposed rate adjustments…. We believe it is the most responsible community-minded path forward for long-term health.”
For a Proposition 218 protest to succeed, the city needed to have received a written protest letter from a majority of the parcels that receive water and sewer services. That protest could be submitted by a property owner or a resident, but only one counts toward the protest process, according to Willdan Financial Services Vice President Chris Fisher.
“If the written protest makes up 50% plus 1 of the total, then the process has to stop,” Fisher said of the rate adjustments. “That’s a majority protest and the Council cannot override that.”
To successfully halt the proposed sewer rate adjustment, sewer customers needed to have submitted 1,799 protest letters, City Clerk Robin Altman said. She received a total of 1,444 protest letters including 19 that were submitted following the public hearing on Monday.
On the water system side, a total of 2,021 written protests submitted to the city would have stopped that rate adjustment, according to Altman. However, she said she received 1,449 written protests, including 20 that were submitted Monday evening.
“The protest has failed and we will not be moving forward with the next step of counting and validating the protest,” Altman said.
Four members of the Crescent City Council approved the ordinances setting the new five-year rate structure for the water and sewer services with Councilor Ray Altman dissenting.
During the first of two public hearings, following the Council’s general public comment period, which went on for about 48 minutes, Councilor Jason Greenough told residents that no one wants to raise their rates. However, he pointed to studies completed by Willdan Financial Services for the sewer system and by Rural Community Assistance Corporation for the water system.
At a March 16 meeting, Fisher told councilors that the city’s sewer fund is in a structural deficit that’s expected to increase in the next five years if rates aren’t adjusted. Meanwhile, RCAC Assistant Field Manager Samantha Ryan said if water rates aren’t adjusted, sales won’t be enough to cover the system’s operating and maintenance costs.
On Monday, Greenough said Crescent City can’t maintain its infrastructure without proper funding.
“For me at least, it’s all a matter of looking at the facts and seeing the need and seeing the potential for a failure in the future and having to do a risk assessment on this,” he said. “Is the cost benefit worth not increasing the rates? I don’t think so. If we have a major failure, we’re going to have to rely more on the state and the state, they’re not very forgiving when they come into a community and take over. They will fix it and they will give us the bill and we will be forced to pay it anyway.”
Starting July 1, the average residential water customer who uses 500 cubic feet of water per month will see their rates increase by 99.7%, bringing their bill from $22.49 to $46.18. Rate increases between 2027 and 2030 would range from 4.8% to 5.5% for the average residential bill. At the end of the five-year adjustment, the average monthly bill would be $56.50.
According to the city’s staff report, while the recommended rates go into effect on July 1, most customers would likely see their first water rate increase in August. It has been about nine years since water rates were last adjusted, City Manager Eric Wier said.
Meanwhile, a typical residential customer living within city limits will see their sewage bill increase by about $25 starting July 1, going from $72.21 to $98.06, according to Fisher. Rates would then increase for single-family residential customers by $12.26 in 2027; $7.17 in 2028; $6.46 in 2029; and $6.20 in 2031, according to Fisher.
Customers outside city limits, who are billed for wastewater treatment only, will see their rates increase by $16.46, going from $63.14 to $79.60 starting July 1. Their rates would increase by $9.95 in 2027; $5.82 in 2028; $5.25 in 2029; and $5.03 in 2030. Their monthly sewage rates would be $130.15 by 2030.
Expenses have grown since the City Council last approved a sewage rate increase in 2015 failed to materialize following after voters approved Measure Q in 2016. If that rate adjustment had gone into effect, the city would likely be considering a smaller 2-4% increase.
“The first couple of years increase is making up for the loss of rate increase revenue over the past 12 years,” Fisher said.
Willdan had looked for ways to avoid such a drastic increase, Fisher said, including reducing a 180-day operating reserve in the sewer system or reducing its capital reserve.
“But then you have to balance that with the risk of not having money in the reserve,” he said. “Because of the timing of receiving rate revenue, the reserve could get thin and leave the city vulnerable to emergencies.”
Wier acknowledged that the proposed rate increase for the water system is also significant during the first two years, but it’s also needed to respond to emergencies. The city manager pointed to a water main break that occurred on Elk Valley Road that occurred in 2025. That failure prompted the city to issue boil water notices to residents and businesses in the Bertsch-Oceanview area, but what was really concerning was the city only has 750 gallons of water stored in its Amador Tank, Wier said.
“If it wasn’t fixed immediately they would have run out of water. If you run out of water for a long period of time, it’s really hard to function and have a household,” he said. “They fixed it in a couple of days. That was over $100,000 to fix that.”
Many who spoke during public comment were still skeptical, especially about Fisher’s comparison to sewer rates in Eureka and Fortuna. Mary Niski pointed out that Eureka has a larger income base to tap into than Crescent City.
“We’re poorer than they are plus we’re smaller than they are,” she said. “Compare us to another county of the same size and the same economic base and I’ll believe it. We can’t pay this. We just can’t.”
