THROUGH MY EYES -- RON DAVIS

Fe, fi, fo, fum -- I smell a sewer fee soon to come.

The city of Huntington Beach is about to learn that when the toilet

backs up, the best solution isn’t to simply put the toilet lid down.

In 1996, the city discovered extensive sewer leaks in the Downtown

area. Applying the doctrine of sweeping the sewage under the ground, the

city allowed these leaks to continue to drain into the ground, unabated,

until late 1998 when they finally began repairs.

In 1996 and again in 1997, the City Council looked at the issue of

imposing a sewer fee to repair the sewers. These motions failed, but it

apparently didn’t occur to the city that the sewers still needed

repairing.

Recently, the Orange County district attorney and the grand jury

looked into the city’s failure to report these leaks to the appropriate

government agency as required by law.

During the last City Council meeting, Councilman Ralph Bauer confirmed

what I had learned off the record from a number of sources: The city is

about to enter a plea acknowledging responsibility for failing to report

the leaks and will be placed on some sort of probation -- a probation

which undoubtedly requires us to do something about our sewers.

The fact that almost all of the sewers discovered to be leaking in

1996 in the Downtown area are now repaired, doesn’t solve Huntington

Beach’s sewer problem. Sewers involve more than just a few underground

pipes in Downtown. The sewers throughout the rest of the city are in a

sorry state of disrepair. Moreover, that which we flush through our

sinks, showers, dishwashers, washing machines and toilets isn’t beamed to

the Orange County Sanitation District by Scotty from Star Trek. The stuff

is actually pumped through various lift stations throughout the city to

the plant.

Estimates by the citizen-based infrastructure committee tell us that

the cost of repairing and maintaining the sewer system over the next 20

years is about $120 million. Note, this figure isn’t generated by the

political types we accuse of not giving a darn about our tax dollars, but

by a group of very sophisticated, community-based, tightfisted citizens

who are concerned about our tax dollars as much as you and me. They

recognize that while our city coffers may not be flush, our toilets

better.

The last thing our political representatives want to do is impose new

fees or taxes. Show me a politician who proudly campaigned by telling the

voters they were responsible for higher fees and taxes, and I’ll show you

an ex-politician cleaning the sewers with a tooth brush.

Most of the citizens of Huntington Beach would like to hear how

irresponsible our City Council is for imposing a new fee to pay for the

repair and maintenance of our sewers, and I’d like to lead that charge,

but if I did, I’d be equally irresponsible.

I, like so many of you, believe that government must look at its

existing programs and reevaluate its priorities. We need to look at every

program subsidized by government and determine its comparative worth, and

continue to ask whether we can afford them. But, the repair and

maintenance of our sewers can’t wait until our City Council figures out

whose ox to gore. Nor can the fee be avoided because of the potential

negative political repercussions. We did that between 1996 and 1998, and

appeared before the grand jury in 2001. This sewer fee needs to be

imposed whether politically popular or not.

When the fee is imposed, which should be in October of this year, it

will not only serve to repair and maintain our sewers, but perhaps it

will serve as a reminder to all of us that Huntington Beach is a bedroom

community. And with bedrooms comes bathrooms, sinks, showers and

dishwashers. And when we focus too much on building bedrooms and

bathrooms, we don’t construct a balance of retail which generates sales

tax revenue to pay for our sewers, sports fields and art centers. So we

have to pay for them.

That is the choice we made. A choice that requires us to write checks

to repair our sewers or provide other services, rather than attracting

shoppers to Huntington Beach so that sales tax revenue could make a

greater contribution.

In my mind, that’s a condition that requires as much repair as the

sewers. * RON DAVIS is a private attorney who lives in Huntington Beach.

He can be reached by e-mail at o7 RDD@socal.rr.com.f7