Stormwater Update

You are probably aware by now of the writ of mandate to the LA Regional Water Quality Control Board to cease and desist from any permit activities for stormwater treatment. The LAWRQCB is ordered to revise the standards for stormwater treatment and to consider the economic and social impacts of the permit.

This is great news and let's hope that it will affect the future chloride TMDL's as well as stormwater treatment.

Here are some links if you want to learn more;

• Writ of Mandate
• Ventura County Draft Permit
• Citizens's letter to LARWQCB (feel free to copy all or part for your own letters)

In the meantime, it is still prudent to reduce our stormwater pollutants as much as possible. How do we do that? There are solutions that we can implement now to help avoid future costs.

1. The number one problem causing runoff is develpment and pavement. We are currently requiring new development to treat the stormwater increases that they cause.
2. Trash. Remember the "Don't be a litterbug" campaign? It seemed to help for awhile but there is still a lot of trash being thrown on the streets.
3. Street cleaning; As I mentioned at the workshop, the street cleaner is not able to perform properly because there are too many cars left parked in the street. Santa Paula gave out tickets on street cleaning day. Something to think about? I hate tickets as sources of revenue since it's a way to tax without a vote but I wouldn't mind seeing cleaner streets.
4. Grants: The Prop 84 sustainability grant program will give preference to communities that include "Ahwahnee or Sustainability Principles, GHG and energy efficiencies". We should be adopting some of these principles in our General Plan for future grant opportunities.

Where's the cuts?

Remember last month when the sewer bill was increased to $72 rather than $85? We were told that staff and consultants had really worked hard to cut costs and save that extra $13 a month.

If only...

Sorry, but there were no cuts or cost savings. Here's an analysis of the new revised numbers. The items that were removed from the expenses were the line items for new sewer plant operations. The new sewer plant won't be online for a year so those expenses weren't needed anyway.

The only actual budget reduction was the amount for the delinquency allowance. There was an anticipation of about $257,000 expensed due to non-payment of sewer bills. Now that that new ordinace requires landlords to put the water/sewer bill in their name, the strategy is that if the tenants don't pay their bills, the City can put a lien on the landlord. As a landlord myself, I think it's a bad idea since you can't control how much the tenant uses. Anyway, that expense has been reduced to $51,500.

Actually, there was one increase in the proforma. Salaries - starting in 2010. The 4/4/07 proforma had an annual 3% increase in salaries built in. An update on 4/27/08 bumped it another 3.9%. The new proforma expenses include an additional 8.3% per year! So, in 2010 and at least through 2016, a big jump for a total of 15.5% per year.

Here's the comparision Chart


~Enjoy