Rate rollback clears a hurdle

Legal action likely, city manager says

Crescent City Councilwoman Donna Westfall’s attempt to lower sewer rates to October 2007 levels is moving forward.

The Del Norte County Clerk/Recorder’s Office verified last week that Westfall’s initiative petition had enough valid signatures to be placed on the November ballot, but fell short of forcing a special election.

Westfall needed 171 verified signatures from registered voters in the city to have the sewer rate initiative placed on the next municipal ballot. Though she submitted more than 300 signatures, only 178 were confirmed by the Clerk/Recorder’s Office.

Crescent City Manager Rod Butler said Monday that the council has several options for how to proceed, including adopting an ordinance to repeal sewer rates, calling for a special election, allowing the initiative to go to the ballot in November or legally challenging the initiative in court.

Butler said there’s “slim to no chance” the City Council would adopt the sewer rate rollback because he and other city officials have said in the past it could bankrupt the city or cause it to default on its loan with the state for construction on the wastewater treatment plant. He added that it’s also “extremely unlikely” that the City Council would support a special election because of the cost of holding one.

The more likely option, he said, and one that the City Council approved of in a Jan. 4 closed session, is to try to invalidate the petition through legal action.

“It would by trying to actually prevent the thing from getting on the ballot because of what we believe to be some flaws in the content and what the implications would be,” Butler said.

The City Council voted to increase sewer rates in November 2007 to help pay for a $43 million upgrade to the municipal wastewater treatment plant. Westfall, who was not on the City Council then, opposed the increased fees at that time and ran on that platform to get into office in November 2008.

On Monday, Westfall said she did not want to comment on the success of the sewer rate initiative petition.