Petaluma sewer rate rollback debate takes shape

<p>Proponents of a Petaluma sewer-rate rollback on the November ballot are hoping to tap into an anti-tax sentiment that recession-weary voters may be feeling.</p><p>“More fees, less service; when does it stop?” asks the ballot language in support of the measure. “It stops with you; by voting to prevent the never ending raids on your pocketbook.”</p><p>Measure U, placed on the ballot by a citizens' signature-gathering initiative, aims to return the city's wastewater rates to 2006 levels, contending that the city has misspent and misappropriated ratepayer money. Future rate increases would have to be approved by voters.</p><p>But opponents, including the entire city council and several retired city leaders, warn against what they call a simplistic, misleading and irresponsible argument. They say it may not even been legal.</p><p>“Here we go again,” their ballot argument states, reminding voters of Measure K, an even broader water and sewer rate rollback effort two years ago that voters rejected resoundingly.</p><p>“The idea that voters can reduce sewer rates by over 45 percent without causing major mayhem is pure wishful thinking.”</p><p>Petaluma's rates, which average $63 a month, are in the middle of Sonoma County's nine cities. By 2011, the rates are anticipated to be about $80 a month. A rollback to 2006 would cut bills to about $43.</p><p>Rates have increased annually over the past several years, mostly to pay for a $160 million wastewater treatment facility that went into service last year to replace the city's outdated, inadequate plant.</p><p>“They're ripping off the ratepayers,” said Bryant Moynihan, a former councilman and the driver behind both measures. “They've had every chance in the world to reform and they've refused to do so. The voters have no other option.”</p><p>Councilman Mike Healy, who wrote the argument opposing Measure U, said if it passes the city could become insolvent.</p><p>Passage would cause the city to default on $128 million in low-interest loans and bond sales used to finance the facility and inhibit the city's ability to seek refinancing options, opponents say. It would immediately cause an $8 million to $10 million annual deficit in the wastewater operating budget, they say.</p><p>Moynihan said the city has misstated and misappropriated the fund's budget. He dismissed arguments that the measure invites bankruptcy.</p><p>“For the last six years, they've charged the wastewater fund for excessive charges,” he said, such as storm drain maintenance.</p><p>Similar rollback measures passed in Rohnert Park and Dixon, “and those cities didn't go bankrupt,” he said.</p><p>The Sonoma County Taxpayers Association, of which Moynihan is a member, voted somewhat surprisingly to oppose the measure.</p><p>The association is “sympathetic with those advocating the rollback of rates as a means to force the city's management to control costs,” group leader Fred Levin said.</p><p>But “the treatment facility has been built, financial obligations are in place,” and rolling back rates would put Petaluma “in a deeper fiscal morass than it is currently experiencing.”</p>