Opinion and Commentary By Donna Westfall – March 22, 2026
Monday night, March 16th. Standing room only for the Crescent City Council meeting.
By the time City Manager, Eric Wier, got the floor to present the proposed increases in water and sewer rates, most of the audience left. If you can, pull up the video on YouTube.com. At 3 hours and 27 minutes, they show the proposed rates for inside the city.
Let’s look at their projections just on sewer rates. There will be a $25 increase in the first year:
2027 $ 98.06
2028 $110.32
2029 $117.49
2030 $123.95
2031 $130.15
The next slide on the presentation has county rates.
There is a way to stop the increase. It’s called Proposition 218 protest vote. If there are over 2,000 protests, then they cannot raise the rates.
But, people have to get involved now because the city wants to put the new rates into effect on July 1st. That’s right. July 1st of this year.
Here’s what happens next. On April 16th, the city will mail out information about the Prop 218 protest. Then there is a 45 day period where people can walk in or mail in their protests.
BUT, here’s what happened in the past. Some people didn’t get the Prop 218 notice. Some people took in their Prop 218 protest only to have it miscounted or disappear. Three of us went in to the city to count the votes and found over 165 mistakes.
In reality, the first 1,000 protests are pretty easy because the larger property owners usually sign for all their properties. It’s the next 1,000 signatures that are more difficult because a lot of people throw away that mailer from the city.
Here’s how it get’s jumbled. If you are a tenant that pays the sewer bill, you get to sign a protest. If you are the owner you get to sign a protest. BUT, only 1 protest per property will be counted.
All five council members voted to increase your sewer rates.
Council members: Jason Greenough, Ray Altman, Mayor Isiah Wright, Mayor Pro Tem Candance Tinkler and Steve Shamblin.
Is there an alternative to increasing rates? Very likely, but it will probably take an Ad Hoc committee and the City probably won’t want that.
Meanwhile, I put in a public records request with the city to provide me with the cost for an accurate list of current sewer customers. I’m still waiting.
