They Still Aren’t Hearing You and the Scare Tactics Have Begun

After reading Debra Dingman’s right-on-the-money commentary on the Dixon city council’s special meeting on Thursday, December 17, my analysis will be shortened here. The purpose of this meeting was to seemingly get input from those who were instrumental in repealing a 330% water rate increase.

In an undated letter to four proponents of the repeal, the city manager Jim Lindley had the temerity to demand that the proponents not only give a presentation with less than a week’s notice but to delineate solutions to the proposed capital improvement projects as well as to provide funding sources. If you read last week’s paper, you saw the proponent’s response printed in full.

Rather than answering questions on which the engineering department has been silent for almost two years, the city attorney and council took an adversarial position, continuing to claim their way is the only way. The majority of the meeting was run by city attorney, Doug White, who claimed there were four buckets of money and only the capital improvement bucket could be altered.

There is a basic flaw in any financial analysis which does not look at all variable costs. When your major cost of running the water system is electrical and the State’s impetus is toward moving to solar, you would think anyone with a smidgen of common sense would go there first. Instead we are told to ignore the $1.4 million in operating costs.

So what does city hall propose to get the system economically balanced? Your elected officials want to go right out for another rate increase and they want to add a “public engagement” consultant, whose job it is to parrot their position. How about just finding solutions instead?

Let’s look at additional scare tactics promoted by White. Don’t be fooled. The State isn’t going to take over the water system. They didn’t in Atwater and both the city’s general fund and water fund were in deficit by millions of dollars. Who was their city attorney? … Doug White.

Next we have the impact of having to deal with hexavalent Chromium also known as Chromium 6. Early in White’s presentation he sloughed off the issue of affordability on our citizens as if some of us are just casualties of war.

To attain the ridiculously high standards the State attempted to impose of no more than 10 parts per billion of Chromium 6, the cost has been estimated at $6000 per home per year which would increase your water bill by $500 per month. This is why the California Manufacturers Association and the Solano County Taxpayers Association signed on to a lawsuit requiring the State to follow its own mandates on economic impacts to communities.

Rather than the city joining the fight, White advised the city council to stay out of it. Now he is again telling all of you to just pay your bill and shut up once the State again attempts to wiggle out of their responsibility.

To summarize White’s solutions, blithely accepted by councilmen Pederson and Ernest, there will be a number of meetings during the coming year where each project will be analyzed in detail. If these meetings are nothing more than indoctrination sessions, this will be a monumental waste of the public’s time and money.

Considering the city engineer Joe Leach stated that part of the West Yost report detailing future projects was hidden from the public because of “homeland security concerns,” I have to question how much else is being hidden while those who we don’t trust continue to tell us to trust them. How is it a concern to show the condition of a well or to discuss alternative solutions to drilling a new well?

I have put in a request to Leach to ascertain the electrical demands and current cost of pumping. I have yet to receive even an acknowledgement of my request. I estimate current electrical costs are running anywhere from $750K to over a million dollars a year.

What happens if we install solar at our well sites or elsewhere in the city to supply electricity? One, you reduce electrical costs thereby freeing up those monies for other projects which still must be vetted in detail by those claiming they are unnecessary or unjustified. Two, there is a cost associated with installing solar which can be supplanted in part through grants, which staff hasn’t seemed to be able to find but I found in less than a minute.

I welcome the additional meetings but only if they are truly workshops like those the wastewater committee held. To hear councilman Kevin Johnson ask the mayor about taking public comment with the mayor responding that citizens will get their three minutes after staff’s hour and a half presentation makes me believe this mayor doesn’t really want to hear anything the public has to say and certainly not in detail.

Who is not listening? According to Pederson, Ernest, and Doug White, the citizens aren’t listening. According to the proponents, it is the council and staff who aren’t hearing. There is more than one way to get things done and you aren’t going to get anything done except by use of force if you aren’t willing to consider all options.

Try bringing in actual well drilling experts or those in the business of rehabbing existing wells instead of desk jockeys looking at actuarial tables. Find individuals with varying opinions rather than just those who agree with your current position.

This can be done, folks. I will say we are off to an inauspicious start although it is a start. Building trust isn’t a brainwashing exercise.