San Bruno residents oppose stormwater hikes

Though no decision was made at the meeting and the issue will be further discussed in early April, frustrated residents made clear their position that they do not support the proposal.

“We don’t need more bills to pay,” said resident Dennis Matthews, who participated in a line of speakers during the meeting suggesting officials look elsewhere for the money needed to rectify the budget shortfall plaguing the system.

Matthews suggested councilmembers instead draw from the settlement Pacific Gas and Electric paid to the city following the Crestmoor neighborhood explosion to pay for the capital improvement.

Instead, officials have directed a major segment of that roughly $70 million managed by the San Bruno Community Foundation toward constructing a new recreation center and swimming pool.

“This is more important that having a new swimming pool or recreation center,” said resident Reyna Burgos, comparing the need for fixing the stormwater system against the luxury of having a new community center.

While residents appreciated the effort to build more community amenities, some felt that the money would be better spent on addressing critical infrastructure.

“We have to look at different ways to get this revenue rather than the easy way of taxing residents,” said resident Angel Cruces.

For his part, Cruces said officials should look to capitalize on the cannabis industry as a means of generating income to offset the costs associated with the wastewater system repairs.

Voters last fall passed a 10% business tax to be levied against cannabis companies, but officials have held off on establishing regulations determining which types of businesses are allowed in San Bruno.

Financial constraints are at the heart of the discussion around potentially raising the stormwater rates. The city has about $30 million in a stormwater capital improvement plan that cannot be addressed by a fund that operates at a deficit, officials have said.

The system is estimated to be 120 years old, and recently has struggled to accommodate the increased demand brought with population growth. The need for fixes are becoming more frequent, system breaks are occurring and safety as well as budget threats are becoming more severe, said officials.

To address the issue, officials in January agreed to initiate the process of raising rates and changing the calculation system determining how much property owners must pay.

Officials are considering adopting a system that would bill property owners according to the amount of impervious square footage on their property, since features like roofs, driveways, walkways and other hard surfaces funnel runoff into the city’s system.

Under the proposal, the average bill rate would leap from $46 annually to $154 — an increase of about 234%, according to a city report.

Because the rate hike would be paid through the annual property tax bill, city officials must begin a Proposition 218 process of calling a mail-in election, which will allow landowners to protest the increases. So long as a majority of the residents do not oppose the hikes, councilmembers could adopt a resolution approving the increases in July.

City Manager Jovan Grogan said roughly 6,000 of the city’s 12,000 property owners would need to formally protest the rate hikes to stall the process. So far, he said City Hall has received roughly 260 formal opposition notices.

For his part, Grogan acknowledged the timing of seeking the rate hikes is poor because so many residents are struggling financially due to the pandemic.

“No one wants to be going to the public saying we are proposing to increase fees right now,” he said.

But those concerns must be balanced against the reality that the system’s funding as currently constructed is unsustainable, he said.

“With the fund going negative, it will come from our general fund reserve and truly threaten the health of the city’s general fund,” he said.

austin@smdailyjournal.com