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As San Diego council members prepare to vote on major water and sewer rate hikes, the city’s independent budget analyst warns that higher rates are all but unavoidable in order to keep the Public Utilities Department afloat — and that not raising rates would hurt customers in other ways.

The City Council is scheduled to vote on Tuesday on a proposal that could raise water rates for San Diego customers by more than 60% and sewer rates by more than 30% over the next four years.

As the San Diego City Council prepares to make major water rate hikes, city staff clearly want weary councilmembers to blame the San Diego County Water Authority and not the wastewater recycling project the city is building.

Tuesday the City Council will vote on a 63 percent water rate hike and 31 percent wastewater rate increase over the next four years. City Hall is abuzz with chatter that there may not be enough votes to pass the rate increases, which could set in motion an unpredictable series of events. The city pays the Water Authority about $30 million per month for water. The Water Authority’s bills to the city will come due no matter what. But if elected leaders refuse to raise rates, San Diego’s utilities department can’t collect the money it needs to function.

San Diego County Water Authority General Manager Dan Denham was seated today as the Water Authority’s newest representative on the board of directors of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

Denham brings more than two decades of water industry expertise, as well as a deep knowledge of the relationship between Metropolitan and the Water Authority. He succeeds Gail Goldberg, who served on Metropolitan’s 38-member board since 2019.

A titan in San Diego’s local water world is retiring and will be replaced by former city of Oceanside’s public utilities director, Lindsey Leahy.

Gary Arant has been general manager of the Valley Center Municipal Water District for over 36 years. When he arrived in the sleepy eastern San Diego County town, its vast avocado groves were the second-biggest water user in San Diego.