Fresno City Council to Vote on First Water Rate Increase in Nearly a Decade

Fresno City Council will vote Thursday on whether to start the public hearing process for water and sewer rate increases — the first water rate hike in almost a decade and the first sewer rate change in 16 years.

The typical residential water bill would climb by about $1.77 per month in the first year under the proposed five-year plan, while sewer bills would drop by 95 cents per month due to restructured rates that shift costs between residential, commercial, and industrial customers.

Councilmember Miguel Arias held a news conference Wednesday morning opposing the rate proposal, which he says is being rushed through without adequate public notice. Arias told Fresnoland the rate increases are “code for SEDA” — the controversial Southeast Development Area mega-project — and that the city plans to use increased revenue to bond against for future development rather than for stated infrastructure needs.

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“We cannot use a raised rate for existing residents for the benefit of future residents who are not rate payers,” Arias said.

Mayor Jerry Dyer disputed that connection entirely. “These dollars are for the purpose of replacing infrastructure in neighborhoods, older neighborhoods that exist currently today and have existed for hundreds of years,” Dyer said. “This isn’t about providing any funding for the future growth of our city to include SEDA.”

Dyer said the rate increases are necessary after years of rising costs for energy, chemicals for treatment, staffing, and meeting regulatory standards. He said aging pipes could become safety hazards without the funding for repairs.

Councilmember Annalisa Perea said more time is needed to publicly discuss the proposal before any vote. “We owe it to the public to ensure that we do everything possible to be transparent, to have an honest conversation and the council members need to be ready to ask a lot of hard questions,” Perea said.

Council members received the financial plan on October 2 and are being asked to begin the public hearing process on October 8 — a six-day turnaround. The item is on the consent agenda, which allows council members to pass it without discussion. If approved Thursday, a public hearing would be held December 3.

The Breakdown

• The typical residential water bill would increase by $1.77 per month in year one of a five-year plan, with incremental increases in following years — totaling under $13 over five years according to Mayor Dyer.
• The typical residential sewer bill would decrease by 95 cents per month due to restructured rates that shift costs between residential, commercial, and industrial customers.
• City documents list projects including renewal of water mains, constructing wells, and “additional contributions to the operating reserve to fund costs for emergencies or unforeseen expenses.”
• This would be the first water rate increase in almost a decade and the first sewer rate increase in 16 years.
• If council votes yes Thursday, a public hearing would be held December 3 before final approval.

What This Means for You

Your monthly water and sewer bills would change if this proposal passes, but the real voting question is whether you trust your council’s judgment on what these rate increases actually fund.

Mayor Dyer says aging infrastructure in older neighborhoods needs replacing and the money goes there — not to SEDA. Councilmember Arias says the rate structure was designed to generate bonding capacity for future development, meaning today’s ratepayers subsidize tomorrow’s growth. That’s not a technical dispute — it’s a fundamental question about stewardship of public money and whose needs come first.

The council you elected will decide Thursday whether to move this forward with only six days between when they received the plan and when they vote on starting the public process. Watch how your council member votes and whether they pull this item off consent to actually discuss it.

What You Can Do

The Fresno City Council meets Thursday, October 8. Contact your council member before the meeting to state your position on the rate proposal.

If the council votes to proceed Thursday, a public hearing is scheduled for December 3 where residents can formally comment before final approval.

What to Watch

The staff report states the increased rates would fund “additional contributions to the operating reserve to fund costs for emergencies or unforeseen expenses,” but does not specify a dollar amount for that reserve contribution or define what those yet-to-be-determined costs are. Are those undefined future costs the infrastructure repairs in existing neighborhoods the mayor describes, or are they the bonding capacity for SEDA that Councilmember Arias warns about? The answer matters because one uses your rate increase to fix what’s broken now, and the other uses it to finance what developers want to build next.

Mayor Dyer says recent funding sources — a $233 million settlement with Shell and Dow over water contamination and nearly $300 million in state infrastructure funding — were not enough to prevent rate increases because they only benefit specific wells and a handful of neighborhoods. That raises a straightforward question: if hundreds of millions in recent funding still leaves the city short, where exactly did that money go, and what specifically will these rate increases pay for that the settlement and state funds did not cover? The material does not provide a line-item breakdown.

This item is on the consent agenda, which means it can pass without any council discussion unless a member pulls it. Will your council member pull it to debate it publicly, or will they let it pass in silence? That choice tells you whether they think six days is enough time for the public to weigh in on the first water rate increase in nearly a decade.

The rate structure shifts costs between residential, commercial, and industrial users, with residential bills dropping on the sewer side because, the mayor says, residents were “subsidizing commercial or industrial” customers under the old structure. If that’s true, how long was that subsidy in place, how much did residents overpay, and why is the correction only happening now? The material does not answer that.