Oxnard--The City Council, by unanimous vote, approved the proposed water rate increase Tuesday, May 2, and introduced an ordinance establishing new water rates, fees, and charges.
The action comes after a large effort by the City to educate the public on the need for an increase through workshops across the community.
Public protests could have invalidated the increase with a majority of written protests. The City received 1,432, not enough to conduct a validation of the protests.
The average single-family residential bill will go from $50.39 to $62.65. Multi-families will increase from $91.41 to $108.77.
Assistant Public Works Director Joseph Marcinko presented the item and said the City serves more than 43,000 accounts and customers with potable water service, and 85 percent are single-family and multi-family residential customers.
Oxnard uses surface and groundwater, constituting 40-50 percent of the budget.
“We have operation maintenance expenses; we have 10 groundwater wells, 5,700 fire hydrants, six blending stations, and 70 people,” he said. “We have infrastructure investments, including the Capital Improvement Program projects.”
He said the City is doing a project with AMI for the automated metering infrastructure, which will install 43,000 new water meters across the City.
“We also have a…
