Henry Castino showed up at the Keyes Community Center on Tuesday evening, Aug. 26 ready to give a piece of his mind to the Keyes Community Services District board directors over a proposed whopping fee increase.
Castino showed up early, anticipating a large crowd of others to protest the raising of sewer rates from $64.23 to $101.23 per month. After only two women showed up and no board present, he later discovered a small sign taped to the outside of the building saying the meeting was changed to the KCSD office blocks away.
Arriving late, Castino heard that the district board had cancelled the advertised August 26 Prop. 218 protest hearing and rescheduled it for 6 p.m. Oct. 28 at the Keyes Elementary School multi-purpose room, 4400 Maud Avenue.
According to KCSD General Manager Ernie Garza, the protest hearing – which was advertised months ago in a letter to Keyes property owners – was rescheduling due to the number of people who claim they didn’t receive their protest ballots in the mail.
Castino was not happy when he walked in and questioned why the public wasn’t told about the hearing being cancelled and rescheduled.
“You guys didn’t tell nobody,” Castino said. “We didn’t get notification.”
Board President Johnathan Parker shrugged his shoulders.
Garza indicated that any protest ballots previously returned in the prior protest process will be destroyed and won’t be added to any of the new protest ballots that went out.
The Keyes Community Services District provides water and sewer service to those living in Keyes. Keyes has no wastewater treatment plant and through a contract with the city of Turlock, sends its’ effluent to the treatment plant in Turlock. The Turlock plant also accepts waste from the city of Ceres and the unincorporated town of Denair.
KCSD announced recently that the $37 per month wastewater rate hike is “necessary due to increased operating expenses, including significantly higher treatment charges from the city of Turlock, which processes the district’s wastewater.” A letter to residents stated that the rate hike is “essential to maintain a financially stable and compliant wastewater system.”
Proposition 216, adopted in 1996, requires government entities in California seeking to raise fees for water, sewer and solid waste to hold a protest hearing. Protests are rarely successful since at least 50 percent plus one of affected property owners must submit valid written protests and getting half of a community to take time to fill out ballots is difficult due to community apathy.
The KCSD mailed out its new Prop. 218 protest forms on Monday, August 25.
Castino owns 15 rental units in Keyes and noted the rate hike will be an extra $400 which he’ll have to pass onto his tenants.
Parker commented that Turlock should have been implementing smaller increases over time but had not adjusted rates since 2015.
The higher rate, once adopted, will be implemented on Dec. 1, said Parker.
According to Parker, the board has little choice but to increase fees since “the city of Turlock has already started to raise their rates and we’re locked into what we have to pay them.”
The city of Turlock considers the Keyes an industrial class customer.
In 2024 the Turlock City Council approved new sewer rates that on Jan. 1 had residential users paying a little less every month while increasing rates for industrial users between 200 percent and 400 percent.
Other industrial users were critical of the city last year because of Turlock’s sudden rush to raise rates dramatically given that there was no rate increase for services for the sewer for the last 11 years and no rate study since 2008. One of those was Maryn Pitt, the policy director for the Manufacturer’s Council of the Central Valley, who said: “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.”
Turlock’s Municipal Services Director Christopher Fisher said Turlock’s previous sewer rate revenue was barely covering operating expenses and not covering debt service and capital improvement needs. He added that the aging sewer system requires significant additional investment to meet service standards. Without the rate increase, the city was projected to run an annual deficit starting in 2025 and would grow to approximately $8.7 million by FY 2028/29.
Turlock’s sewer rate increase has officials with the Denair Community Services District scrambling to pin down its increase for its residents. Denair sends the Turlock treatment plant 9 to 10 million gallons of effluent each month. The new rates will see the district’s costs go up $250,000 a year, which will in turn increase their residential users’ bills. A rate study is being performed to determine what the new sewer charges will be.
