Sewer tax rollback measure sparks lawsuit

Rohnert Park on Wednesday sued the backers of a ballot measure that would roll back sewer rates to 2006 levels in an attempt to correct what they contend are false and misleading ballot arguments.

Measure L, which qualified for the November ballot, contends the city’s three sewer rate increases over the past three years subsidizes developers and are a hardship on residents.

City officials say the measure would have a significant hurt city’s finance, creating a $2.1 million deficit next year and a $16.4 million deficit by 2012.

“Under state law we have the ability to insist that something that is being printed on ballot material that will go out to every voter should be factually correct,” Mayor Jake Mackenzie said Thursday. “If the statement is clearly inaccurate, if it is not a true statement, the law gives us the ability that parts of the statement be stricken.”

It’s the second suit filed in the November election targeting ballot arguments.

Also on Wednesday, the chairman of the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit agency sued opponents of Measure Q in Marin County Superior Court, contending those arguments were false and misleading and needed to be rewritten.

In the Rohnert Park measure, the city contends the proponents of Measure L falsely state that sewer bonds were solely for development to serve the east side of the city, the city intended it to be paid for by developers connection fees, that there have been no new connection fees, and the city was realizing almost $4 million a year in net revenue after debt service.

John Hudson of Rohnert Park, one of the five signers of the argument, said it was a trivial dispute and an attempt to brand the Measure L proponents as dishonest.

“They are discriminating against us,” Hudson said.

The core of the argument for Measure L is that sewer fees were raised to the benefit of developers, Hudson said.

The city has raised rates three times since 2006 to offset what it says are the costs of improving the infrastructure in Rohnert Park and to pay the city’s share of the regional sewage pipeline, which treats wastewater and carries it 40 miles to The Geysers.

The sewage rate for the average home, which discharges 5,500 gallons a month, is $60.85 a month. The measure would roll back rates to $41.23 a month, the rate before the increases took effect.