Economy

Oceanside Raises Water, Sewer Rates To Avoid Credit Downgrade

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published November 5, 2009 at 12:01 PM PST

This story was published more than 14 years ago.

Oceanside city council has approved water and sewer rate increases after a bond rating agency issued a negative credit watch on the city’s sewer bonds.

Oceanside city council has approved water and sewer rate increases after bond rating agency Standard and Poor's issued a negative credit watch on the city’s sewer bonds.

It was the Oceanside city council's second vote on water rate increases in a bid to avert a potential credit rating downgrade. After the council failed to approve the rate hikes last week, the S & P rating agency issued a negative credit watch for the city’s 2008 sewer bonds.

An analyst at S & P wrote that the city needed to enact sufficient rate increases or budget cuts to show it could meet its obligations to repay the bonds. Oceanside’s debt payment on sewer bonds is more than $5 million a year.

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Cities around the county are considering water and sewer rate increases in order to pay for an 18 percent increase from the San Diego County Water Authority.

In Oceanside, the average water bill will now increase from $42 to $50 dollars a month. Sewer bills will rise even higher.

S & P’s analyst says once the agency gets information from the city on its ability to meet its bond repayments, it will consider whether to lift the negative credit watch. She could not say how long that will take.

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.