SNOHOMISH —The city’s planned utility rate increases for the next five years generated negative responses at last week’s City Council meeting.
It’ll hurt young families, a mother who lives in the Blackman Lake area said.
Is the council tone-deaf to the public?, another asked.
Last month, the City Council approved 5-1 to increase water rates by 21% next year, and 15% in 2026, before easing off with 8% increases 2027 through 2029. Sewer rates, meanwhile, will increase 10.25% next year, and 10.25% again in 2026, before having annual 6.5% increases 2027 through 2029.
Under the changes, an average homeowner’s average bimonthly city utility bill for water, sewer and stormwater is set to be $315 in 2025, and $350 in 2026 before having less steep increases in 2027 to 2029, from tables presented Sept. 3 by rate consultants. In 2027, the bill would be $375; in 2028, $402; and in 2029, $432.
City officials said previously utility rates need to be increased to both maintain the current system and also to afford millions of dollars in future water and sewer improvements being planned. The alternative is risking more pipe breaks and fielding emergency crews, the city said.
City utility rates haven’t been increased since 2019, and these are seen as playing catch-up.
The city will be evaluating stormwater rates in 2025 and likely adjusting this piece of the bill for 2026 onward.
Residents outside the city along the former water transmission line are being charged a higher rate structure than city residents.
At the meeting, city administration emphasized it is false information that combined water and sewer bills* will triple by 2029. The information was seen in a letter to the editor in the Tribune and the Herald, and spread online, based on charts presented on pages 37 and 38 of the City Council Sept. 17 agenda packet.
The Tribune’s letters policy is that it does not conduct fact verifications on the contents of letters. The reason is to prevent going down a path of censoring letter writers based on the interpretation of facts used to give opinions.
The city ceased using the transmission line to bring water from the Pilchuck River to inside city limits. It was built in 1981, and has a limited lifespan that would require replacement for $80 million or another solution.
About 75 residents tap into the line, and whoever owns the line appears obligated to serve them water.
It’s the city’s line but it hasn’t used it for years; the Pilchuck River water was sourced from a dam that’s since been demolished.
The transmission line has been known to be “a concern for decades, but one that never had a plan to address it beyond eventually notifying property owners the city would abandon the line,” city administrator Heather Thomas said to the council last week.
City staff are “developing incremental solutions” for those customers “in the coming years,” Thomas said.
Replacing the line for $80 million is “not a good use of public funds,” Thomas said at the Oct. 1 council meeting.
* - Update, Oct. 9:
This story updates with precision that City Administrator Thomas spoke of the combined water and sewer amounts, not the combined water-sewer-stormwater utility bill, at the 22-minute mark of the Oct. 1 meeting (link to audio).
