Recommendation to declare ordinance approving approving Resolution No. WD-1441A, A Resolution of the City of Long Beach Board of Water Commissioners Establishing the Rates and Charges to be Charged For Water and Sewer Service and declaring the urgency thereof, and providing that this ordinance shall take effect at 12:01 a.m. on June 1, 2022, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
Thank you as the emotions are second here. You know this isn't the item on the screen. Can we pull up item 26 on the screen? There is motions that can police. Thank you. Any public comment on this? If there are any members of the public that would like to speak on item 26 in person, please line up at the podium in Zoom. Please use the raise hand feature or dial star nine now. See none. That concludes public comment. Thank you. No staff report is requested here. Councilman Austin, Miranda, anything? Well, I want a staff report. I think this is very good news that we need to make sure that our public knows about. Mr. Gardner, will the staff report? Certainly. So as you know, with Measure M in the court settlement, there were three components. One was a refunding of $9 million within 30 days to the water fund. Our water board took the action to return that money to the ratepayers as quickly as possible. We did that through a approval of a $100 per customer credit. Another component of that is we were told to we will receive $21.8 million back from the general fund within six months, hopefully sooner. And our board last week approved returning that money also to the rate payers. And so that will be done on the basis of meter size. And so larger customers will receive a larger credit. Smaller customers will receive a smaller credit. That will probably take place sometime in the July time period. The third and final component of the settlement or the lawsuit was we need to remove from our budget in error rates anything related to measure. M So right now in our rates, we collect money that goes towards the measure. AM Transfer to the general fund. With the lawsuit, we that has to stop. And so we're taking that component out of our rates going forward. And so that would be the equivalent of reducing our rates by 2.54% going forward. So that will be from I think it's April 25th. It'll go into effect June 1st and it will go through the end of the year. Then when we do our budget for FY 23, we will obviously have no measure m costs associated in our revenue collection. So the rates will reflect that. Great. Thank you. Can't say enough. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Gardner, for that detailed explanation of this item. You know, obviously, we come to the to this with mixed emotions, but we're doing, I think, the right thing by my returning. Turning the money back to the ratepayers. And so, you know, the courts have decided and we're moving forward accordingly. I think this is a responsible move on behalf of the water commission. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember, you want to go further? All right. I don't see any hands, virtually anything. Okay. I'll just say I concur here, and I think timing is incredibly important. And at least we have resolution to this controversy before we move forward with a major change to both of the utility departments. So I think I think timing is key here. Thank you so much. And may public comment on this. If there are any members of the public that would like to speak on this item in person, please line up at the podium in Zoom. Please use the raise hand feature or dial star nine now. See. Now, that concludes public comment. Thank you. Let's have a roll call vote. District one, district two I, district three. I. District four. I. District five I. District six I. District seven I. District eight. Hi. District nine. Hi. Motion is carried. All right. Now we'll move to general public comment. Any members of the public would like to address the city council. Now be the time. All right. Seeing none. Right here. Okay. Come on. Forward. All right. Thank you. You have 3 minutes.