Water-rate dispute is like an illness

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• Paso gets started on sewer upgrade procedure

  Paso gets started on sewer upgrade procedure

  The Paso Robles City Council late Tuesday night voted to move forward with a plan to finance a roughly $49.6 million treatment plant upgrade by raising monthly sewer rates.

  Tuesday’s vote starts a state-mandated process of notifying ratepayers that an increase has been proposed, allowing them 45 days to file potential protests.

  A hearing is to follow the end of the protest period, tentatively set for early December, officials said. If the majority of ratepayers don’t protest, then the council can adopt an ordinance to increase the sewer rates beginning July 2012.

• Lake water follows rocky path to Paso

  Lake water follows rocky path to Paso

  My hometown, Paso Robles, is like an unlucky Monopoly player. It wants to buy the Water Works, but it keeps getting “Chance” cards that say, “Go back three spaces.”

  But last week, our City Council did move one space forward. It approved the construction of a limited, seasonal, water treatment plant. That plant could take five years to build, but it would let us finally drink some of that Nacimiento Lake water we’re paying for but can’t use.

  In 2004, the council contracted to buy 4,000 acre-feet of water per year from the proposed Nacimiento pipeline. That pipeline is now built and is carrying water right through Paso Robles.

• Suits over Paso water rates go in different directions

  Suits over Paso water rates go in different directions

  A second citizen lawsuit filed in June against Paso Robles’ water-rate increases has been thrown out, even as another lawsuit against the city that’s been on hold for about two years might finally go forward.

  In the June lawsuit, John Borst of Paso Robles again argued that the city’s water rate increases to pay for its portion of the Nacimiento Water Project should have been considered a special tax requiring voter approval, instead of going forward as a fee on a water bill.

  The case was essentially the same lawsuit Borst filed in May 2010 — with four other members of a Paso Robles-based citizens group — that San Luis Obispo Superior Court Judge Martin Tangemen ruled against in October.

• Paso ghosts chime in on water rates

  Paso ghosts chime in on water rates

  Two ghosts haunt the Paso Robles Library/City Hall building. They are the spirits of Ignacy Jan Paderewski and a 9-foot-tall California grizzly bear.

  Paderewski was a classical piano superstar in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He became a part-time Paso Robles resident after the local hot springs and mud baths cured the pains in his overworked arms and hands in 1914.

  The grizzly bear was seen in the 1770s easing his arthritic rear paws in the main Paso Robles hot spring.

• Paso’s sewer upgrade riding on rise in rates

  Paso’s sewer upgrade riding on rise in rates

  If you live in Paso Robles, like I do, and have a swimming pool, like I don’t, you should avoid filling your pool this December, January or February. It could raise your sewer bills. That’s right; your “sewer” bills, not water bills.

  The Paso Robles City Council took the first step Tuesday night toward raising our sewer rates. We now pay $25.86 per month no matter of how much or how little liquid and flotsam we discharge into the sewer. (“Discharge” is sewer-insider talk for flush, drain or pour.)

  But our new sewer rates will be figured differently. They’ll be based on the amount of sewage we produce.