Yes, there has indeed been a lawsuit filed against the city of Davis concerning the legality of both our water and sewer rates, and now we’ll all have to wait and see how the legal issues play out.

And while I can understand the frustration of city leaders when another potential roadblock to its long-awaited $113 million surface water project presents itself, the city’s response to the lawsuit was less than dignified.

The lone individual named plaintiff in the lawsuit is John Munn (who is listed along with the Yolo Ratepayers for Affordable Public Utility Services). Munn is a longtime solid citizen of this town who has raised his family here and served four years on the Davis school board. He’s the kind of “regular guy” neighbor most of us would love to have living next door.

Whether this legal challenge to our water and sewer rates ultimately prevails or fails, John Munn deserves better than the scraps of scorn the city tossed his way in its official response to the lawsuit.

Said the city: “It is unfortunate that the Yolo Ratepayers for Affordable Public Utility Services group are not satisfied with the outcome of the Measure I election.”

Apparently, no one at the city has read the lawsuit, given that no part of it challenges the outcome of last month’s Measure I ballot measure that was approved by Davis voters, 54 percent to 46 percent.

Water rates (and sewer rates) were notably absent from that ballot. Members of the City Council chose not to include the water rates on the measure despite the fact many Davis citizens passionately urged it them to do so. There was, of course, nothing illegal about the city’s decision. It was simply a political calculation that resulted in the successful “yes” vote the city was seeking.

Adds the city news release on the lawsuit: “Based on the Measure I vote, the city has a duty to move forward and meet the city’s future water needs.”

Again, the lawsuit has nothing at all to do with Measure I, as much as the city would like us all to think it does. The city may as well have said “It is unfortunate that the Yolo Ratepayers for Affordable Public Utility Services group is not satisfied with the outcome of the 2012 presidential election.”

To be sure, the city also addresses the issue of the legality of the water rates that the lawsuit raises, which is all well and good and within the rules of fair play.

“The city firmly believes the water and sewer rates are legally valid and the lawsuit is without merit,” the city claims.

One certainly hopes the city feels that way now and felt that way at the time it imposed this dramatic rate increase on the ratepayers of Davis. Then again, if things go south here, it wouldn’t be the first time the city detrimentally relied on faulty legal advice. I mean, in no time at all several years ago the city was virtually on its knees begging to modify the terms of its one-sided contract with Massachusetts-based Zipcar.

The city notes that its position “is based on legal analysis by statewide experts on rate structure legalities,” even if those same statewide experts have never seen anything on the planet quite like the consumption-based fixed rate structure.

“The surface water project and the water rates were determined and approved by the citizen-based Water Advisory Committee,” the city adds. Indeed, that’s true, even if several prominent members of that committee have serious reservations about the advisability of the rate structure that takes hold in less than three weeks.

One outside legal expert brought in by the city because of her expertise in interpreting the legality of water rate structures in California concluded that “We believe that the CBFR structure complies with the substantive provisions of Article XIII D, section 6(b).”

Fair enough.

But she then adds this word of caution: “Because the CBFR structure is a new and untried methodology for allocating the costs of providing water service, we cannot predict whether a court will concur with our interpretation.”

Which is one of the reasons this lawsuit deserves to be heard, not mocked.

— Reach Bob Dunning at [email protected]

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