Community Corner

The Seventh Seat Conundrum, Water Rates Going Up and City Employees Brace for Further Negotiations

City council meets at 7pm tonight

The city will once again take up the issue of the seventh vacancy at tonight’s council meeting. Although Mayor Glass has suggested that the seat could remain vacant until the 2012 election, not filling the position means the council would likely be dead-locked on development projects such as Deercreek Village.

At a January 31 meeting, the council heard from 17 of the 19 applicants for the vacancy, but could not reach agreement. Mayor David Glass, Teresa Barrett and Tiffany Renee agreed on Jason Davies, the runner up in the November race, former Mayor Pamela Torliatt, Dennis Pocekay, a former physician who now teaches at Casa Grande High School and Harry Clifford III, a retired insurance executive.

Among the candidates favored by Healy, Harris and Albertson are Gene Beatty, a retired police lieutenant who has served as Petaluma’s interim assistant city manager and interim finance director. Another candidate the three agreed on is Louis Steinberg, a real estate broker who has served on the Cinnabar School District board.

Find out what's happening in Petalumawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Also on tonight’s agenda, the city will once again ask the city employee union, AFSCME, to defer a 2 percent pay increase until June 30. In exchange, the union, which represents clerical, maintenance and confidential employees, such as IT technicians, agreed to extend the contract until the end of the year.

Despite the contract, staff can be let go at any time.

Find out what's happening in Petalumawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The union, which represents 111 city of Petaluma employees, was due two pay increases in 2009, but agreed to defer them in light of the city's worsening fiscal situation. The city is facing a $231,000 deficit this year and Mayor Glass has said that more cuts are on the horizon.

Deborah Padovan, Deputy City Clerk and president of AFSCE, said the union is aware of the problems and willing to work with the city to trim costs.

“The city will be asking for more concessions in the next six to eight months,” Padovan said. “We know we are going to have to compromise and are willing to do so…one of the reasons we agreed to the 2 percent deferral was to save jobs.”

And finally, the council will also discuss water rates, which are set to increase by 5 percent next year. Ironically, the increase is due to the entire county using less water, which has reduced the total amount of water delivered to households.

“We sold less water last year – roughly 4 percent less last year from the year prior, and when we're reducing deliveries by 4 percent it adds 4 percent to our rates,” said Brad Sherwood, a spokesman for the Sonoma County Water Agency. “It's usually a direct, one-to-one correlation (between the percentage drop-off in consumption and the resulting rate increase).”

But before you are tempted to water your lawn for two hours or take an extra long shower, consider this: measures to save water actually prevent more dramatic and less predictable cost fluctuations.

“People say, 'Why do I have to conserve if you're going to charge me more money?' Well, there are unseen savings because the Water Agency and our contractors have to pay for capital improvement projects, such as expanding the pipelines and building more pumps, and that would be the outcome if use went up. It would cost millions of dollars to expand our water supply system.”

The city council meeting starts at 7pm tonight.


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