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Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Controversial Water/Sewer Rate Hikes, COVID-19 grants on Tonight's Arcata City Council Meeting Agenda, LoCO reports

Posted By North Coast Journal Staff on Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 1:47 PM

Tonight at 6 p.m. the Arcata City Council meeting will include a discussion of new water and sewer rates that could kick in a few months from now, the Lost Coast Outpost is reporting.

"If eventually approved, average sewage rates could go up around 50 percent over the next five years, and water rates by about a third," the report states.

Reasons the rate hike would be good: The Arcata Wastewater Treatment plant needs $60 million to fix a bunch of its problems (see the webinar above).

Reasons the hike would be bad: People's budgets are already hurting. Also, they'd love the chance to argue about this in person rather than over videoconference.

Relatedly, the next item on the agenda will involve upcoming CARES ACT grants from the state of California. The state has $18.7 million to award to local jurisdictions, LoCo reports, and the City of Arcata could receive up to $147,657.

To provide public comment, follow these instructions from the city:

Members of the public may provide public comment before and during the meeting by sending comments to the Clerk by email at [email protected]. Such email comments must identify the agenda item number in the subject line of the email. The comments will be read into the record, with a maximum allowance of three minutes (approximately 500 words) per individual comment, subject to the Mayor’s discretion. If a comment is received after the agenda item is heard, but before the close of the meeting, the comment will still be included as a part of the written record of the meeting but will not be read into the record during the meeting.