Rates increased an average of 11.7% in 2006 and 5.1% in 2007, according to a city report. But they haven’t been raised since then, said Public Works Director Steve Zurn.
But those details were largely overshadowed at the meeting Wednesday evening at the Maple Park Community Center, particularly when a group of regular city critics latched onto the annual money transfer.
“Some of the attendees came ready for a fight,” Jennifer Sullivan said, likening the meeting to a TV reality show. “It’s not the pennies they’re fighting about.”
One of the plan’s main critics, retired law professor Harry Zavos, at one point got into a shouting match with a fellow resident over the transfer.
Zavos successfully lobbied the city to stop transferring $4 million in water revenue after pointing out a state proposition that limits how those revenues can be spent. But the city attorney’s office has determined that those restrictions do not extend to electricity revenues.
“If we don’t transfer that money, the impact on the General Fund is so dramatic and so negative to the community [that] I don’t think the community would stand for it,” Ochoa said.
The Glendale Water & Power Commission and City Council plan to review the proposed increases in August. Two more public outreach meetings are scheduled, one for 7 p.m. July 16 at Sparr Heights Community Center, 1613 Glencoe Way, the other at 7 p.m. July 18 at Clark Magnet High School, 4747 New York Ave.
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