Letter to the Editor: Why Didn't Renters Have a Say With Rate Hikes?

Editor's Note: The City Council  to decide whether to raise the garbage, water and sewer rates for residents. The council took a 3-2 vote in favor of the rate hikes during the first reading of the ordinances that would solidify the increases. The council will  on the rate increases.

I recently called the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers' Association and spoke with a member of their legal team in Sacramento.

I explained the situation of the rate hike, and told them I thought it was unfair that renters who paid their own utilities (e.g. water, electricity, etc.) were not allowed to sign the protests for the city of San Bruno, especially since so many owners don't want to get involved and merely pass the utility rate increases down to the renter. The legal person adamantly told me that regarding Proposition 18 (which is the required legal document for cities to raise utility rates), renters who pay the utilities are allowed to sign a protest form (but both the renter and owner cannot sign for the same property, which makes sense.) 

The city clerk's office and the water department were given instructions by the city to accept only property owners' protests, and in our "warning" that there was going to be a proposed rate hike, it states that only a property owner can sign. 

Even when I asked twice to both the city clerk's office and water department, they both told me only owners could protest. As I mentioned that I had some renters that signed, they said they could not accept the protests I wanted to give them. (And, to their credit, they seemed to agree with me that it seemed odd that renters who paid their own utilities could not protest.)

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers' Assn. is the one who put Prop. 18 on the ballot and are the authors.  The legal person told me that if, on Tuesday night, May 22, the council does their final vote and adopts the ordinance to raise the rates, the organization is going to contact the city (I guess it would be against the law for the city to adopt the rate hike when renters who pay utilities were banned.).

I always like to get other opinions, but they are the ones who wrote this proposition.

On a follow-up call I had with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. today, the organization said they called the mayor and told him the notice sent out 45 days ahead was illegal. 

Also, the city's ordinance states that the rate hike can only be passed with a two-thirds vote of the council. Two-thirds of five council members is 3.33 people, so there would need to be four affirmative votes.

I even checked other cities that raised their rates (slightly!), and, as an example, I believe it was Atherton in 2011, which stated in their ordinance that the hike can only be enacted by a two-thirds vote on the council of five people. They stated that you need four affirmative votes.

—Barbara LaRaia, resident