A tense preview of Tuesday’s showdown over San Diego's skyrocketing water rates played out Monday in the lobby at City Hall.
There were dueling news conferences featuring charts filled with graphs and dollar signs – but no talk of compromise.
The steep rate increases alone are sparking outrage in an era of sacrifice and rationing.
But what's really setting off folks in the South Bay is the idea of paying more for recycled water than customers in San Diego.
The city's backers say, that goes with the deal South Bay’s water stewards made.
"No one likes to see costs rise, none of us do -- especially when we see our lawns going brown,” said Kris Michell, president of the Downtown San Diego Partnership. “But it's a given. There is no other responsible alternative."
San Diego city officials and business leaders warned of severe consequences without water rate increases that'll cost the single-family household an extra 10 percent, or $6.44 a month for starters, reaching 40 percent over a five-year period.
A lot of the money is needed for the city's "Pure Water" recycling program that would provide a third of its drinking water in within 20 years.
But South Bay residents and their water district say the so-called "unitary" rate structure they'll be getting for "purple-pipe", recycled water is disproportionately high.
"That's $7.2 million leaving the hands of folks in the south,” said Jason Wells, CEO of the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce. “San Ysidro's got a median income of $46,000 a year going up to the north, which has incomes two to three times that amount."
Added Andrea Skorepa, president of Casa Familiar: "It is patently unfair for the city of San Diego to expect those of us in the South Bay to pay and subsidize those who are in the north county."
Behind all this is an undercurrent of politics and clashing economic priorities going back more than a decade, when South Bay's Otay Water District and two agencies in the north county signed contracts with San Diego's Public Utilities Department.
"They were not forced to go into this agreement; they voluntarily entered into this agreement,” said Lani Lutar, representing the Endangered Habitats League. “Now they want an 'out' when their contract terms has not ended -- because they made inaccurate assumptions. That is not, frankly, the problem of the San Diego City Council."
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The council is scheduled to take up the issue at 10 a.m. Tuesday.
Critics of the rate hike measure are leaning on the council's four Republican members to vote against it.
But they'd have to answer to the business community, which is solidly in favor of it.
