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Full video of Monday night's city council meeting.

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About a month after it approved a $50,000 contract with Operations Management International to help operate the sewer plant, the Crescent City Council on Monday authorized the city manager to spend an extra $115,000 for additional staff at the plant.

Operations at the plant is currently $15,000 under budget following approval of the $50,000 contract with Operations Management International, also known as Jacobs Engineering, City Manager Eric Wier said. However, following the resignation of the city’s chief plant operator, the sewer treatment plant needs additional staff, an estimated additional expense of $115,000, bringing the total amount to $165,000, according to Wier.

The initial $50,000 professional services agreement with Operations Management International allowed the contractor to assist the city in operating the facility until the city could draft a contract that would allow Operations Management International to take over running the sewer plant entirely, Wier said.

“At that time we didn’t know the exact extent of the Council’s direction in regard to moving forward with the contract or timeframe to implement the contract,” Wier said, adding that the $50,000 was meant to get the sewer plant through the Council’s Monday meeting. “I report today that we are under budget on that (by) $15,000. The operators have done a great job in operating the plant.”

Wier said he would bring a 5-year contract with Operations Management Inc. to take over operating the plant at the Council’s first meeting in August.

Inscore noted that with the resignation of the sewer plant’s chief plant operator, the city isn’t paying salary or benefits for that position, which offsets the expense of hiring more staff.

“It’s not as big a hit as it feels like and I look at it as part of the investment into the future we’re making with this transition,” he said. “Contract operations is the direction we wanted to go. Even if we spend it all, it’s not having that level of an impact on our budget because we’re not paying the salary or benefits during that period of time because of being short staffed.”

According to Wier, in addition to the resignation of the chief plant operator two other staffers were on family medical leave.

Wier said the $165,000 total for the June 17 professional services agreement with Operations Management International and the July 15 amendment to the agreement would get teh city through September. Operations Management International will have another operator train with the sewer plant’s current staff.

Before discussing the Operations Management International contract, the Crescent City Council held a public hearing to address delinquent sewer accounts. A sewer account is delinquent when a property owner has past-due fees of at least two months, Wier said. The list he presented to the Council on Monday totaled $15,497.25. The deadline for the report of delinquent sewer accounts to the county is July 31, according to the city’s staff report.

During the public hearing, resident Chuck Horton said he received a bill stating that he owes $744 in sewer fees for his property on Washington Boulevard. However, he said, he’s not hooked up to the city’s wastewater system.

Horton said he has owned the property for more than 60 years and he’s never been hooked up to the sewer system.

“Shouldn’t it be thousands and thousands of dollars?” Horton said of his past-due bill. “If it’s only $744 and I’ve been going there for 60 years, something’s off kilter.”

Though the City Council approved moving forward with authorizing the collection of delinquent sewer charges, they agreed to hold off on Horton’s past-due charges until a dye test could determine whether his property is connected to the city’s wastewater system.

According to Wier, the test involves putting a neon-type dye into the property owner’s sink and going to the downstream manhole to see if the dye shows up. If the dye fails to show up then that property owner has a septic system, Wier said.

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In other matters, the Crescent City Council authorized staff to send letters of opposition in response to two pieces of pending legislation. One, SB 266, introduced by State Sen. Connie Leyva, has to do with the California Public Employees Retirement System, or CalPERS. The bill is opposed by the League of California Cities, which is encouraging other California cities to send letters of opposition. The League states that the law could strain local budgets if passed.

The other legislation, SB 330, the Housing Crisis Act of 2019, introduced by State Sen. Nancy Skinner, would prohibit a city from imposing parking requirements near rail stops. Though Inscore noted that the bill wouldn’t apply to Crescent City since it doesn’t have a rail hub, he felt that it would supersede a city’s ability to enforce its codes and ordinances.

“What I would rather see from our state legislature is a process in which they incentivize local municipalities to amend their zoning and to put some of these housing dollars back into municipalities (and say) ‘here’s some money for you to do these things that will enable there to be an opportunity to spur growth and building,’” Inscore said. “It’s unfortunate, but I think it’s easier to take power away than it is to try to proactively work with municipalities to make it happen.”

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