LAKEPORT, Calif. – In a brief Tuesday evening meeting, the Lakeport City Council – sitting jointly as the City of Lakeport Municipal Sewer District – approved waiting until next summer to implement the city's next sewer rate increase.
Public Works Director Mark Brannigan went to the council to ask for clarification on when the council members wanted the next sewer rate increase to take place.
Exactly one year ago – on Oct. 2. – the council approved water and sewer rate increases for city residents, as Lake County News has reported.
The water rates went into effect in January, but the council had directed staff to delay the sewer rates until July 1 in order to look into ways to assist the commercial customer classification with volume charges, which was completed this summer.
The resolution passed last year that instituted the new sewer rates set up a schedule that called for the next increase to be in January 2014.
Brannigan asked the council members to decide if they wanted to keep the increases on a yearly basis or go ahead and raise the rates again after six months.
The council voted unanimously to keep the sewer rate increases on an annual schedule, meaning the next increase will come in July 2014.
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