Cambria residents should find out Friday whether protest stopped rate hikes

An announcement about whether Cambria ratepayers have stopped a second consecutive water and sewer rate increase proposal is expected Friday, Aug. 8, according to two Cambria Community Services District directors.

Approximately 2,500 protest letters were submitted by the July 14 deadline. About 2,000 valid protests, or 50 percent plus one, are needed to stop the rate hike.

Since then, League of Women Voters’ representatives, district staffers and consultants have been tallying the and verifying signatures and other data, as representatives of the grassroots Cambrians for Fiscal Responsibility looked on.

CCSD board President Joan Cobin said Tuesday, Aug. 5, that those working on the task “are done validating the signatures. Now they have to enter it all into the computer, match it up with our account numbers. That’s when they’ll get the final count” for a report the League will prepare and submit to the district.

The board would then “adopt their report and the results and say the protest either prevails or not … if it’s one over 50 percent or one under.”

If the protest fails, “the board has a number of options,” said Director Greg Sanders. “The proposed rate increase is the maximum the board can impose.” Directors could raise rates “to any point between where they are now and the rate increase” proposal that prompted the protest under the state’s Proposition 218.

“Also, the board does not necessarily have to borrow” the $8.1 million as proposed, he said, but could “decide to borrow none, borrow all $8.1 million or something in between.”

To replace the town’s water hub and pumps and build a new water-storage tank at Stuart Street, CCSD would have to borrow about $4 million, Sanders said.

The two-stage rate increase would hike a bimonthly bill for 12 units of water to $145.49, as of Sept. 1, and to $165.74 on July 1, 2009.

In November, a similar protest by ratepayers halted a larger increase recommended by a district consultant. More than 3,550 protests were submitted in that protest; 2,266 were deemed valid.

— Kathe Tanner