On Tuesday, election officials certified that the petition drive spearheaded by former Fresno County Supervisor Doug Vagim has enough valid signatures to place the referendum on the November ballot. More than 5,500 registered voters signed the petition, which was circulated by Citizens for Lower Water Bills, to repeal rate hikes approved by the City Council in August 2013.

“We’ve got the people behind us,” Vagim told the Fresno Bee. “They’re ready to have their voices heard.”

But the fight is far from over, and the petition certification now puts the onus on the City Council to address the issue at its next meeting scheduled for July 17.

Will city play more games?

The City Council could avoid an election by voting to rescind the higher rates, or it could follow the will of residents and place Measure W on the November ballot. The biggest question: Will the city play more games and continue to thwart the will of the people?

As CalWatchdog.com previously reported, the city of Fresno has gone to great lengths to block the referendum from reaching the ballot. When the taxpayers tried to circulate a petition to overturn the mayor’s plan, the city took the extraordinary step of refusing to grant the petition a title and summary. Without a title and summary, the group couldn’t collect the necessary signatures to get a referendum on the ballot.

Not content to block the initiative, the city went a step further — it sued the taxpayers. Eleven judges have disagreed with the city’s frivolous lawsuits, which have cost taxpayers nearly a quarter of a million dollars.

City could delay or decrease rate hikes

That history of bully tactics and obstruction has taxpayers fearing more gamesmanship from the city.

It’s within the city’s authority to refer the initiative to city staff for further study and to report back to the council within 30 days. That would, in the process, cause the referendum to miss the August 8 deadline for placing measures on the November ballot. The referendum would then be up for the June 2016 election, or an earlier special election.

In addition to this delay tactic, another option floated by Councilman Lee Brand would be to approve a 5 or 10 percent reduction in the water rate increases.

Vagim says a slight reduction is dead in the water. “It’s not legal,” he told CalWatchdog.com. “The people signed a petition that stated ‘Repeal’ water rates — not reduce them.”

City: “Not about Doug Vagim’s ability to collect signatures”

A spokesman for the city said that the water rate increases are vital to Fresno’s future.

“This is about Fresno’s future, not about Doug Vagim’s ability to collect signatures,” said city spokesman Mark Standriff. “The city of Fresno is looking forward to answering the real question posed by this measure – and that’s whether or not our citizens support the city’s plan to improve our water infrastructure, replenish our dwindling water supply, and provide safe, clean, reliable water for everyone.”

Mayor Ashley Swearengin, a vocal proponent of the water rate hikes, said the rate increase on 134,000 water customers is necessary to fund a $410 million upgrade to the city’s water system. According to the Fresno Bee, “The typical monthly home water bill could (based on consumption) go from $24.49 at the time to $48.34 by mid-2016.”

Swearengin is running for state controller in November.

Vagim’s group shifting public opinion

Vagim’s group collected 715 more signatures than they needed to qualify the measure for the ballot. In the process, they’ve also shifted public opinion on the water rate hikes. The Fresno Bee editorial board, which previously backed the water rate hikes, is now having second thoughts.

“City Hall might have reached too far with the size of these rate increases,” the Bee editorialized. “Though some households can easily absorb them — or afford to invest in water-saving technologies — many households will have to spend less on such things as groceries, clothing and transportation to pay their water bills.”

The paper concluded, “We suggest that the City Council take a hard look at reducing the increases. This can be done by trimming the cost of the new water-treatment plant and scaling back or even delaying some of the other improvements.”

On April 28, Superior Court Judge M. Bruce Smith reaffirmed his preliminary ruling granting the “Citizens of Lower Water Bills — Yes on Measure W” the right to move forward with their referendum on the city’s controversial water rate hikes. The ruling clears the final pre-election hurdle for the group of taxpayers, although it could still be appealed to the California Supreme Court.

Last year, the City of Fresno denied the taxpayers a title and summary for their petition, and then sued the taxpayers to prevent their initiative from being circulated. The move appeared to be a direct violation of the California Constitution. Section 3 of Article 13C states that “the initiative power shall not be prohibited or otherwise limited in matters of reducing or repealing any local tax, assessment, fee or charge.”

Pre-emptive strike: City sues taxpayers

The Superior Court ruled against the city.

“Measure W moves on as we complete our gathering of signatures,” said former Fresno County Supervisor Doug Vagim, the leader of the taxpayer group and a named party in the case. “It’s estimated the City’s lawsuit will cost the taxpayers of this community over a third of a million dollars, and to date they have lost at every court, Superior and Appellate. Their next step is the California Supreme Court.”

To qualify their referendum for the regularly scheduled November 2014 election, taxpayers would need to submit 4,846 valid signatures to the City Clerk by May 8.

Petition circulation time cut short

Opponents of the water rate increase say that the protracted legal battle was little more than a stalling tactic to make it more difficult for them to collect the necessary signatures.

“As a result we were provided a window of only 10 weeks from the normal time of 26 weeks to circulate our petition and make the Nov. 2014 election cycle,” Vagim said.

Even supporters of the water rate hike have become disgusted with the city’s hardball tactics. Shortly after the first ruling, the Fresno Bee editorial board, which backs the water rate increases, chastised Mayor Ashley Swearengin for her involvement in the political games.

“We support the water-rate increases; they are vital to the city’s future,” the paper wrote. “But with these stalling and blocking tactics, Swearengin sends a message that she doesn’t trust Fresno voters to do what’s best for the city.”

Tactics backfired — both parties oppose water rate hikes

Yet, the city’s hardball tactics appear to have backfired and united the public against the water rate hikes. In April, Vagim and his fellow taxpayers convinced the local Democratic and Republican central committees to support putting the issue on the ballot.

“Democrats and Republicans don’t often see things the same way,” the Fresno Bee’s City Beat columnist George Hostetter noted. “But both have embraced Vagim.”

Vagim downplays the achievement of bringing Republicans and Democrats together in opposition to the city’s lawsuit.

“Remember, the City of Fresno sued its own citizens in an attempt to stop them from exercising their franchise of the initiative guaranteed by the California Constitution,” he said.

City of Fresno: Rate hike needed to fund aging water system

As CalWatchdog.com has previously reported, the battle began last August, when the city of Fresno approved a controversial plan pushed by Swearengin to raise the city’s water rates. The additional revenue was intended to go toward a $410 million upgrade to the city’s aging water system.

Under Swearengin’s plan, most water users, including city residents and some unincorporated parts of Fresno County, would see their average monthly bills rise to $48, double what they were last year. That didn’t sit well with a group of taxpayers, led by Vagim, who mobilized a grassroots effort to overturn the rate hikes.

But when the taxpayers tried to circulate a petition to overturn the mayor’s plan, the city took the extraordinary step of refusing to grant the petition a title and summary. Without a title and summary, the group couldn’t collect the necessary signatures to get a referendum on the ballot.

In January, the city complied with a court order and issued a ballot title and summary that allowed taxpayers to circulate their petition. The case is City of Fresno v. Doug Vagim.

It’s the latest development in a bitter fight between the city and taxpayers. Last August, the city approved a controversial plan by Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin to double water rates in order to fund a $410 million upgrade to the city’s water system. But when a group of taxpayers led by former Fresno County Supervisor Doug Vagim objected to the plan, the city took the taxpayers to court in order to stop a referendum campaign.

Earlier this month, a state appeals court upheld a lower court ruling that ordered the city to fulfill its ministerial duties and issue a petition title and summary. Now the taxpayers say that the title and summary, as prepared by City Attorney Doug Sloan, are biased in favor of the water tax hike.

“Frankly, I don’t believe this Title and Summary filed by the Fresno City Attorney can be considered to represent an impartial statement of the purpose of the proposed measure,”  Vagim said  “This text belongs in the con-argument side of the ballot’s voter guide for Measure W.”

This is the full text:

“Title: Initiative Measure To Repeal City of Fresno’s Four-Year Water Rate Plan And Related Water Fees”

“Summary: A ‘yes’ vote on this measure would repeal water rates to be charged over four years that the Fresno City Council adopted on August 15, 2013, and cause the rates to return to what the Council adopted in 2008. The City Council adopted the 2013 water rates to pay for increased costs to provide adequate water that is safe to drink. The increased costs are caused by changes in state and federal drinking water standards, depletion of ground water, costs of maintenance and repairs to old water pipes and other parts of the water system, and the necessity to build a surface water treatment plant. If the current rates are repealed, the City Council could impose higher rates again. However, it would delay the City’s work to repair and improve the water system.”

Factual errors: Last water rate hike in 2010, not 2008

Vagim points to state law, which requires the city attorney to issue an impartial analysis. The Election Code states:

“In providing the ballot title, the city attorney shall give a true and impartial statement of the purpose of the proposed measure in such language that the ballot title shall neither be an argument, nor be likely to create prejudice, for or against the proposed measure.”

In the complaint letter submitted to the city attorney on Thursday, Vagim’s group cited factual errors in the title and summary, including the last time the city raised water rates. The petition summary references a water rate hike in 2008, when the last such increase passed the council in 2010.

“The prejudicial nature of this misstatement falsely informs voters that water rates have not been raised since 2008, when in fact rates were last increased in 2010,” the letter objecting to the petition summary states.

After five months of delays, the taxpayers say they’ll circulate the biased petition rather than wait for another title and summary. 

“Moreover, the City’s intentional, unreasonable and unlawful delay over the course of the last five (5) months has deprived my client of time to challenge the petition title and summary for petition circulating,” the complaint states.

If they can gather enough signatures, they’ll be looking for a revised title and summary before the election and could recoup legal fees and court costs in the process.

Fresno City Attorney: ‘Title is fair, complete and complies with the law’

The city attorney maintains that the title complies with the law. “We believe the title is fair, complete, and complies with the law,” said Sloan, Fresno’s City Attorney.

But the state’s leading taxpayer advocacy group contended otherwise. “The language is most certainly slanted,” said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. “But we have not yet determined whether it crosses the line from the perspective of potential litigation.”

Earlier this month, CalWatchdog.com reported the story of the bully tactics by the City of Fresno in defense of Mayor Swearengin’s water rate increases. Under Swearengin’s plan, the average water bill would be doubled to fund a $410 million upgrade to the city’s water system.

In September, a group of taxpayers, led by former Fresno County Supervisor Doug Vagim, organized a campaign to overturn the rate hikes. But the taxpayers were denied a title and summary for their petition. Without a title and summary, the group couldn’t collect the necessary signatures to get a referendum on the ballot.

City of Fresno sues taxpayers

Then the city sued the taxpayers in an effort to stall the petition from reaching the 2014 ballot. In late November, a Superior Court sided with taxpayers and ordered the city attorney to issue the title and summary. Instead of compiling with the court order, the city filed a notice of appeal, which stayed the court’s order, as part of a strategy to run out the clock on the initiative.

The city of Fresno is facing major financial problems after years of fiscal mismanagement and irresponsible spending. It owes $3.4 million per year in annual construction bond payments for a city-owned minor league baseball stadium. The bond payments were supposed to be covered by a $1-per-ticket fee collected by the team. However, City Manager Renena Smith told the Fresno Bee in November that the team is two years in arrears. To solve its cash flow problems, the city had to borrow $14 million from the water department to balance its books.

Fresno Bee: Thumbs down to Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin

Even supporters of the water rate hike have become disgusted with the city’s hardball tactics. Shortly after the first ruling, the Fresno Bee editorial board, which backs the water rate increases, chastised Swearengin.

“We support the water-rate increases; they are vital to the city’s future,” the paper wrote. “But with these stalling and blocking tactics, Swearengin sends a message that she doesn’t trust Fresno voters to do what’s best for the city.”

The “stalling and blocking tactics” stopped the referendum from reaching the June 2014 ballot. To qualify their proposed initiative for the regularly scheduled November 2014 election, taxpayers would need to submit 4,846 valid signatures to the City Clerk by May 8.

The battle began last August, when the city of Fresno approved a controversial plan pushed by Mayor Ashley Swearengin to raise the city's water rates. The additional revenue would go towards a $410 million upgrade to the city's aging water system.

Under Swearengin's plan, most water users, which include city residents and some unincorporated parts of Fresno County, would see their average monthly bills rise to $48, double what they were last year. That didn't sit well with a group of taxpayers, led by former Fresno County Supervisor Doug Vagim, who mobilized a grassroots effort to overturn the rate hikes.

But when the taxpayers tried to circulate a petition to overturn the mayor's plan, the city took the extraordinary step of refusing to grant the petition a title and summary. Without a title and summary, the group couldn't collect the necessary signatures to get a referendum on the ballot.

The move appears to be a direct violation of the California Constitution. Section 3 of Article 13C states that “the initiative power shall not be prohibited or otherwise limited in matters of reducing or repealing any local tax, assessment, fee or charge.”

Pre-emptive strike: City sues taxpayers

Not content to block the initiative, the city went a step further: It sued the taxpayers.

“The City anticipates Initiative Proponents will continue to advocate for the Initiative and its submission to the voters,” its lawsuit states. “By seeking pre-election relief, the City hopes to avoid the cost and expense of submitting an illegal and invalid Initiative to voters.”

Attorneys for Fresno made the remarkable argument that the city's lawsuit would restore the public's trust in government that had been eroded by the courts.

“The voters already fear that everything they vote on ultimately gets invalidated by the courts anyway, and we don't want to feed that fear by letting plainly invalid measures get presented to the voters,” the city's attorney, Michael Colantuono, argued in Fresno County Superior Court.

Taxpayers said that the city was using the legal system to undermine their constitutional rights.

“Our constitutional rights are being infringed on on a daily basis as we're denied the ability to go to the voters to seek their approval,” Chuck Bell, one of the state's preeminent election attorneys, argued on behalf of the taxpayers. “Frankly, we still have the hurdle once a title and summary is issued to retain the requisite signatures of a sufficient number of voters to qualify the measure for the ballot.”

In late November, a Superior Court agreed, and ordered the city attorney to issue the title and summary. Instead of compiling with the court order, the city filed a notice of appeal, which stayed the court’s order, as part of a strategy to run out the clock on the initiative.
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'Core public service not subject to referendum'

Swearengin's office did not respond to an email request for comment on the issue. However, at a press conference last month, the Republican mayor said that the city's interests in managing the water business trumped citizens' rights to petition their government.

“The city of Fresno believes there is ample case law that indicates that a core public service is not subject to a referendum,” she said. “I recognize the short-term pain of raising water rates in the city of Fresno. However, I believe this short-term pain will result in long-term gain for the people of Fresno.”

Much of the city's financial problems stem from years of fiscal mismanagement and irresponsible spending. In a November speech to the Rotary Club of Fresno, City Manager Bruce Rudd acknowledged that “the reality is this organization has always ran close to the edge.”

Among the city's money-pits: a costly city-owned baseball stadium for the town's minor league team, the Fresno Grizzlies. The city owes $3.4 million per year in payments toward the stadium's construction bonds. The bond payments were supposed to be covered by a $1-per-ticket fee collected by the team. However, City Manager Renena Smith told the Fresno Bee in November that the team was two years in arrears.

Which all comes back to the city's water problems. To make up for the cash it wasn't getting from the baseball team, the city had to borrow $14 million from the water department to balance its books.

Fresno Bee turns on mayor over her hardball

Even supporters of the water rate hikes have become disgusted with the city's hardball tactics. Shortly after the first Superior Court ruling, the Fresno Bee editorial board, which backs the water rate increases, chastised Swearengin.

“We support the water-rate increases; they are vital to the city's future,” the paper wrote. “But with these stalling and blocking tactics, Swearengin sends a message that she doesn't trust Fresno voters to do what's best for the city.”

The “stalling and blocking tactics” have already proven effective at stopping the referendum from reaching the June 2014 ballot. If the 5th District Court of Appeals doesn't set aside the stay, taxpayers won’t get a title and summary until May, and the referendum would miss the November ballot. To qualify their proposed initiative for the regularly scheduled November 2014 election, taxpayers would need to submit 4,846 valid signatures to the City Clerk by May 8.

The next scheduled election would occur in 2016, by which time the city is expected to have bond funding contracts in place.