PROPOSED CITY UTILITIES RATE HIKES January marks the beginning of key hearings on the city’s proposal
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to increase water rates by 9 percent, sewer rates by 10 percent and storm drainage rates by 16% in each of the next four years. The rate hikes are expected to increase a typical Sacramento homeowner’s monthly city utilities bill from $116 to $185 per month. To express your views on the proposed rate hikes, I encourage you to attend the city’s Utilities Rate Advisory Commission meeting at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 27, in the city council chambers in New City Hall (915 I St.). The commission’s recommendations will then likely be considered by the city council in either February or March. You can stay up to date on developments, as well as find out how you can help in the effort to moderate city utility rate hikes, by signing up for EOS email updates at eyeonsacramento.org. Craig Powell is a local attorney, businessman, community activist and president of Eye on Sacramento, a civic watchdog and policy group. He can be reach at craig@ eyeonsacramento.org or 718-3030. n
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backyard water mains to assess their remaining useful life but are, instead, abandoning such mains and digging up streets unnecessarily to move water service to the street. (If you observe such practices in your neighborhood, please drop us a line.) We at EOS were pretty skeptical of Shirey’s claim that he had ordered a review of the water meter program “well before [Rubin’s] article appeared.” So we filed a records request with the city that sought copies of all communications between Shirey and the DOU relating to Shirey’s alleged directive to the DOU to conduct a review of the meter and water main programs before Rubin’s article was published. City staff was unable to locate any such communication. It’s possible that Shirey instructed DOU director Bill Busath by phone or in person to conduct such a review, but it’s not likely. A city manager of Shirey’s skill and experience would almost certainly have made sure that a directive from him to a department director calling for a review of two of the largest capital improvement projects in city history be documented, at least by email. Rubin gets under the skin of city managers because his stories uncover waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer and ratepayer money and bad policies that embarrass city managers who, frankly, ought to be doing a better job of overseeing city government. It seems that they just cannot stand for Rubin to get any credit for triggering positive changes in city policies. Instead, they attack his stories. Shirey’s public rebuke of Rubin and ABC10 for the story on excessive levels of a likely carcinogen in the city’s water supply made the point that the city never violated an EPA regulation. Well, that’s fine, but it’s also not relevant: The ABC10 report never claimed that the city violated an EPA regulation. ABC10 reported that numerous city tests showed that the city’s use of a test chemical (ACH) led to elevated concentrations of a likely carcinogen in the city’s water supply beyond that allowed under EPA standards for nearly a year. The report also expressed suspicions
that the city may have shifted testing locations and taken the extraordinary step of injecting county water into the city water supply just days before a mandatory EPA test in order to dilute concentrations of the carcinogen to below EPA limits to avoid violating an EPA regulation and triggering an EPA citation. The city is even hounding reporters who report on the ABC10 story, namely yours truly. After publication last month of my column, which included a brief summary of the ABC10 story on elevated levels of a carcinogen in the city water supply, the city’s Linda Tucker fired off an email to Inside Publications publisher Cecily Hastings that accused me of “propagating false information about our drinking water.” Well. I knew that Rubin had the test reports in hand that proved the accuracy of his story. I also knew that ABC10 had its story vetted by ABC’s corporate legal counsel before running it. But out of an abundance of caution, I asked EOS policy director Erik Smitt, a civil engineer and experienced water plant operator, to analyze the data. He selected the test reports from a single city test site for review and plotted a graph that tracked the levels of the carcinogen over time. (You can view the graph at eyeonsacramento.org.) Smitt found that the mean (or average) concentration of the carcinogen at the test site throughout the one-year period in which the city was injecting the chemical ACH into the city’s water supply exceeded the allowable EPA standard of 80 parts per billion. Meanwhile, I’m pleased to report that Cid’s Christmas was not ruined by the DOU Grinch, thanks to the skilled and energetic reporting of the ABC10 team. As Cid was quoted as saying in the news broadcast, she considers the reversal of the DOU policy her family’s “own miracle on 34th Street.” And, yes, I’ll be asking the city in the New Year to credit me for the $5,000 plumbing bill I paid to replace the broken lower sewer lateral in the alley behind my property.
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Ladies Night Out February 4, 6-8pm
• Trunk show with eyewear Lafont Paris Representative • Cosmetic Contact lens representative • Complimentary makeup consultation • Refreshments and light appetizers
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Arlene Espiritu, OD
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