Starting July 1, Grover Beach residents paying an average of $25.64 for their wastewater will see their bills increase to $30.20. This is part of a newly approved wastewater rate increase.
Grover Beach City Manager Matthew Bronson says the increased rates are necessary to help fund improvements to the city's sewage system.
“No city wants to deal with that phone call of a sewer lift station going down because the technology is 50 years old,” Bronson said. “We have been focusing on so many priorities in this city and at this time, the city council said sewer infrastructure, water infrastructure is the top priority.”
For each of the next five years, there will be an increase in the wastewater rates by 17.8%. This means if you are paying $25.64 now, in 2030 you will pay $58.16 for wastewater services.
Some residents who oppose this increase say it’s too much.
“The city will tell you and scare you and tell you it is not adequate, but they have been saying that for many, many years,” said real estate broker Brenda Auer.
Residents could protest the increase, but the number of protests fell short. Only around 380 residents officially opposed the idea, and 2,681 protests were needed to drop the increase.
Auer believes that's because not enough people in the community were aware of the protest procedure.
“People didn’t know that that’s what needed to be done,” Auer said. “There’s not enough community involvement for people to understand. We have a council that could let their areas know what’s going on and they’re not.”
Bronson said the community was made aware of the situation prior to the city council’s vote to approve the rate increase last week.
“We engaged the public thoroughly," Bronson said. “We had community outreach sessions where we talked about the sewer systems, what our needs were and how our current funding is insufficient to meet those needs. We had a mailer that went out to every property owner and sewer customer in the city that explained what our system needs were.”
