The Bakersfield City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposed increase to sewer rates at its regular meeting Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n
The council will not take action on the proposed rates, only hold one of the two required public hearings for the increase mandated under Proposition 218.<\/p>\n
The evening meeting begins at 5:15 p.m. in council chambers at City Hall South, 1501 Truxtun Ave. The hearing on the rate increases will begin according to the council\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n
If the city receives protests from more than half of the property owners and tenants in the affected area, the fee increase can\u2019t be enacted.<\/p>\n
Protests can be submitted in person or in written form. In order to be valid, written protests must include the affected parcel address, the assessor\u2019s number, stated opposition to the increase and an original signature. Electronic signatures will not be accepted.<\/p>\n
The council will vote on the rate increase following a second public hearing on May 13. If enacted, the increase would go into effect July 1.<\/p>\n
City officials have proposed the increase to fund much-needed maintenance, upgrades and expansion of the city\u2019s aging infrastructure \u2014 mostly notably its wastewater treatment plants \u2014 but the process hasn\u2019t been easy.<\/p>\n
After years of little to no increases in local sewer rates, city officials have said the proposed increased will need to be substantial to raise the funds necessary for the needed upgrades and expansion.<\/p>\n
Last year the city was forced to backtrack on its initial proposal, which would have raised rates by roughly 300%. Officials have since conducted a massive outreach campaign to solicit feedback on potential schedules for rate increases and bond amounts.<\/p>\n
In February, council members voted to send Proposition 218 notices to residents with a proposal to increase annual rates to $475 this year, increasing by $100 annually over the next four years, ending at $875 annually.<\/p>\n
City officials previously said the proposed increase would increase the average monthly bill for a single-family home from about $20 to roughly $40 this year, increasing over the next four years before ending at about $72 a month.<\/p>\n
The only no vote to issue the notices was Ward 3 Councilman Ken Weir.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s plan for overhauling its wastewater systems also includes between $100 million and $150 million in bonding for upgrades and other costs estimated at more than $1 billion.<\/p>\n
Director of Water Resources Kristina Budak told the council in October the city\u2019s proposed rate increases assumed 10 years of expenses, 10 years of revenue and existing debt service. It assumes Bakersfield Wastewater Treatment Plant 3 would be expanded by 2031, Plant 2 would be upgraded by 2033, and the site location and design of a potential Plant 4 would be included within the 10-year plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bakersfield City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposed increase to sewer rates at its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,25934,153,152,5343,120803,85642,100066,50796,16835,113102],"class_list":{"0":"post-280707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bakersfield","8":"tag-bakersfield","9":"tag-bakersfield-city-council","10":"tag-bakersfield-headlines","11":"tag-bakersfield-news","12":"tag-city-officials","13":"tag-proposition-218","14":"tag-public-hearing","15":"tag-public-hearings","16":"tag-rate-increase","17":"tag-rate-increases","18":"tag-sewer-rates"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}