The Turlock City Council will consider at their next meeting adopting a new program that will subsidize industrial customers’ sewer bills staring in January 2025.

This new program comes after significant pushback from the city’s industrial sewer customers when the council voted unanimously at their Oct. 8 meeting to adopt new sewer rates that will see industrial users’ bills increase 200-300%.

“Those manufacturers in Turlock’s service area are deeply concerned about the proposed sewer rate increases being hurriedly brought for adoption before this council…We understand that there has been no rate increase for services for the sewer for the last 11 years and no rate study since 2008. So, the current study was authorized more than two years ago, but now we’re in a hurry. That doesn’t make sense. The city’s failure to plan is not a sufficient reason to hurriedly adopt a new rate structure and not provide planning horizons for the system’s largest users to plan accordingly. This process is not a business or economic development friendly strategy,” said Maryn Pitt, former assistant to the city manager for Turlock, speaking at the Oct. 8 council meeting as the policy director for the Manufacturer’s Council of the Central Valley.

Jeff Segars, representing the Foster Farms plants in Turlock, said the company understands there needs to be a rate increase but was “shocked” when city staff showed him a mock-up bill with a 300% increase.

“The process needs to be paused, we need to look at phase-in opportunities and there needs to be exploration of other options,” he said.

Along with Foster Farms, representatives from Blue Diamond Growers, California Dairies and the Denair Community Services District also voiced concerns over the quick turnaround from the council accepting the rate study then adopting a new rate structure.

The proposed Industrial Ratepayer Assistance Program will fund 25% of each qualifying significant industrial user’s bill as long as funds are available and the industrial user follows the terms of the agreement. This program will be funded by non-rate revenue in the form of penalties that were collected from industrial ratepayers during fiscal years 2018/19 through 2022/23, totaling $2,180,606.92.

“…this Industrial Ratepayer Assistance Program that will help mitigate the impacts of the increase in industrial sewer rates on Significant Industrial Users and help make sewer rates more affordable to Significant Industrial Users in the short term, allowing them time to adjust to the increased sewer rates,” states the agenda staff report.

Repayment of assistance received will be required only if the ratepayer violates the terms of agreement and with no interest assigned to repayment. The agreement states that participants in the program must pay their bills in full (minus the 25% assistance) and on time. Ratepayers who participate in the program will also be required to waive their right to bring judicial action against the city and challenge resolution that established the updated sewer rates.

According to the city staff report, the program was developed with the assistance of two professional consultants, Jarvis Fay, LLP and NBS, who provided special counsel and technical services respectively.

Also at their next meeting, the council is expected to:

·         Receive a briefing on the status of the facility owned by Alamo Health at 1617 Colorado Ave. The mental-health residential care center that Alamo plans to open has been at the center of a feud between the city and county. The city opposes the proposed location of the center, claiming it’s too close to Dutcher Middle School and that that target populations for the facility would be “persons with severe mental health challenges, the homeless and persons recently released from state prison or county jail,” according to language in a June 19 letter from city manager Reagan Wilson to the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors. The county contends that mental health patients have been housed at that location for decades when it was a nursing home;

·         Consider approving an agreement with Genesis Behavior Center in an amount not to exceed $642,500 for Personalized repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (PrTMS) treatments for public safety personnel within the police and fire departments of the City of Turlock, to be funded by American Rescue Plan Act funds.

The Turlock City Council will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Yosemite Room at City Hall, 156 S. Broadway. The meetings are open to the public and there will be time available for the public to address the council about a topic on the agenda or any other topic that falls under the council’s purview. For a copy of the city council’s agenda, visit: https://www.cityofturlock.org/government/turlockcitycouncil/councilmeetings.asp