Poway Wants To Increase Your Water Rates By Almost 40%. What You Need to Know

By Hiram Soto

The Poway City Council wants to increase your water and sewer rates by almost 40 percent by 2025, and it’s holding a public hearing on Tuesday, November 2 at 7 PM to give residents an opportunity to protest the changes. Higher water rates are necessary, says Mayor Vaus and City Council members, to upgrade the city’s infrastructure, which has been neglected for years.

The San Diego County water Authority is also proposing to increase water rates up to 10% starting in 2023, impacting residents across the county. Unlike other cities, Poway treats and manages its own water supply. Residents should have received a mailing with instructions on how to protest the rate hike. The city posted this notice for a public hearing on his website with more information on the proposed water rate hikes. They also offered residents a spreadsheet to calculate how the water rates would impact their bills (hope you're good with spreadsheets!)

In 2019, The California Water Resources Control Board fined Poway for failing to protect Powegians from contaminated water when storm water tainted the city's supply of treated water. The California Water Board also cited the city for “confusing” the public during the weeklong emergency, which led to the temporary closure of businesses.

What's the likelihood the proposed changes will pass? Very. Mayor Steve Vaus and the City Council have made it very difficult for the public to protest effectively. In order to block the hikes, the majority of customers (50+1) need to file written protests against them (oral comments or emails don't count). To protest the rate increases, you must send a letter to the City Clerk of the City of Poway, PO Box 789 Poway, CA 92074-0789 by November 2, 2021.

Here’s the breakdown of the proposed water rate increases:

The water and sewer rates are a critical part of the city’s general fund. In fact, they help pay for a large part of the salaries of City Council members as well as salaried employees such as the City Manager ($230K annual salary), Director of Finance ($216K annual salary), and the Director of Development Services ($165K annual salary).