On Monday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a 25% water rate increase for approximately 7,700 Malibu and Topanga customers who get their water from District 29.
For each of the first two years, Dist. 29 will impose a 5.4 percent rate increase. The following three years customers will pay a 5.2 percent rate increase each year.
The board received 169 written complaints against the rate hikes, but it was not enough to stop the approval. If the board had received written protest from more than half of the 7,700 affected customers, the new rates would not have been imposed.
A few residents attended the meeting in Downtown Los Angeles to protest the hikes.
“Everybody things that [if] they just raise it a tiny bit nobody will mind, but you put all those tiny bits together and it makes it hard,” Topanga resident Terry Gray told the board.
Los Angeles County Waterworks District 29 for Malibu and Topanga asked the board to approve the increases to help address a revenue gap.
“We have expenditures that are higher than our revenues, so we need to close our gap,” a Dist. 29 representative told the board. “If we don’t do that, the district will eventually run out of money.”