Public Comment by Tom Belt

The following is a Public Comment posted by Tom Belt regarding Item 9.2 of the August 22, 2023 city council consent calendar, titled “Ratify Emergency Public Project Without Public Bidding Relating to the Presence of Discolored Water in the Public Water System.”

_{Tom Belt}

I would like to remind city council and our city manager that in 2011 and 2016-17 our city council approved utility rate studies that resulted in our water rates being significantly increased in part to complete several water capital improvement projects (CIPs).

Some of those CIPs identified were to replace the Bell Canyon Intake Tower by 2018 at a projected cost of $2,000,000, rehabilitate Tank 2 by 2019 at a projected cost of $750,000, and to begin replacing all 6 inch or larger water mains over a seven year period beginning in 2021 for which $400,000 was projected to be collected in 2021 and $600,000 each year thereafter until all mains were replaced. Another 2017 CIP was to replace the 12 inch transmission line at a projected cost of $400,000 by 2023. I might add these are just a few examples of CIPs where millions of dollars were projected to be received by the City’s water enterprise through increased water rates, yet none of these projects have been started.

In November of 2022 a revised CIP list was introduced by Public Works Director Joe Leach. On this list the rehabilitation of Tank 2 became inactive and many of the 2017 CIPs were deferred again over a 20-year time frame.

Now water customers are being told there is a water emergency related to the same safe drinking brown water customers have been exposed to almost every year during summer seasons. St. Helena’s water customers are being told by the city manager that this new emergency wasn’t planned for and no monies have been set aside to address the emergency.

I’m thinking part of the issue is that our city manager and public works director are fairly recent employees and are not placing importance on the long list of CIPs that have been deferred and more importantly the millions of dollars that have been already collected by the city to complete these CIPs as far back as 2011’s utility rate study. That’s nearly 12 years ago!

Something is amiss in the city’s water enterprise budgeting process. Is it possible the brown water could be emanating from the deferred replacement of Bell Canyon’s Intake Tower? Or, from the City’s deferment of replacing its water mains?

In closing, it’s time for the City of St. Helena to become fully transparent with the revenues that have been collected for deferred water CIPs since the 2011 and 2017 utility rate increases. If the revenue hasn’t been spent on deferred water CIP’s, what exactly has it been spent on?