SANITARY DISTRICT WANTS TO RAISE YOUR RATES AGAIN!
Our guess is that they're betting you're too apathetic to complain. They may be right.
The Costa Mesa Sanitary District wants to raise sewer fees for your home from $40 per year to
$ 60 per year. This is on top of a 20% increase by the district last year!
The sad thing about this is that whenever the district wants to raise the rates, there are only a few of us who even bother to attend the meetings to protest.
The CM PRESS and two other individuals protested an increase a couple of years ago. That's it, three of us in a city of about 108,000 people.
Maybe you don't complain because you're confused about what the district is and what it does. If so, here's a very quick primer:
1. The district is in charge of some sewer lines in Costa Mesa and gives out contracts to private firms to pick up trash at homes.
2. Especially note, as indicated in #1, that the district does not actually pick up the trash and it has no trash trucks. It gives out contracts to private firms to pick up the trash. "Costa Mesa Disposal" that picked up our trash from 1955 until recently, is a private firm.
3. The district has a five member elected board of directors that holds meetings similar to our City Council meetings. They get paid for this and also get other benefits. However, almost no one ever attends their meetings. This is a shame, because these people work for you. You're the boss.
4. A couple of years ago, the CM PRESS wrote extensively about the district and how it operates mostly under the radar. If you're a long time reader and have saved old issues of the CM PRESS, you can read all the details there.
What does the Sanitary District actually do except give out contracts? Well, in our case, they gave us the telephone number of the county sewer agency when we called the district and complained about sewer odors at the corner of Baker and Fairview that were so strong that we thought they might be explosive.
According to the district, that particular sewer line under our streets is operated by the County of Orange. So, don't call the Costa Mesa Sanitary District about problems with it. That sewer line is apparently full of out of town sewage on a cut-thru route under our city to the waste treatment plant in Huntington Beach. And, up above, on Baker Street, are people in cars who produced some of that sewage in their office buildings in Irvine, who are also cutting through our city to get back to their homes in Huntington Beach. It is unknown if the people in the cars beat their sewage back to HB, but given the odors at Baker and Fairview we might assume that some of their sewage is still here.
No doubt the district will easily pass the latest increase when the board meets on this issue in August, because, as in the past, there will probably be no strong public outcry.
Here's the link to the district's website.
The CM PRESS once suggested to the Costa Mesa City Council that the municipal government take over the functions of the Sanitary District as we see in so many other cities and thus eliminate what seems to be a double bureaucracy. This fell on deaf ears.
If the City were to handle these matters, we could probably save money. Dream on. Bureaucrats love their fellow bureaucrats.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
