Tucker Tries to Delay Tax Hike for Water Recycling : Protest: Assemblyman says he supports project. But he objects to district’s failure to publicize amount of proposed increase.

Accusing the West Basin Municipal Water District of “highway robbery,” Assemblyman Curtis Tucker Jr. is calling on agency officials to postpone their plan to boost South Bay tax bills as part of a $180-million water-recycling project.

The district is moving toward imposing a large increase in its water standby charge, a property levy it is using to help pay for the project. The tax affects all South Bay communities but Torrance and Los Angeles, which do not buy water from the West Basin, a regional wholesale water supplier.

Tucker (D-Inglewood) said he generally supports the recycling effort because it would help offset the effects of a drought. But the West Basin is acting unfairly, he said, by boosting its property levy without fully informing residents about it.

“They need to send out notices to all residents saying what the hit will be and then start this hearing process over again,” Tucker said this week. “Talk about locking the public out. This is highway robbery.”

West Basin imposed the standby charge last year at an initial annual rate of $10 an acre for both residential and non-residential property, with owners of parcels smaller than an acre paying the full $10. Under the planned increase, that rate will jump this year to $30 an acre for residential and $120 an acre for non-residential property.

Though a public hearing on the tax increase was held Monday, Tucker pointed out that a public notice sent to residents in advance of the meeting failed to mention how much the standby charge would increase.

The notice, in fact, did not make clear that West Basin was considering an increase at all. It said: “The charge that was previously levied as of July 1, 1991, will cease and be replaced by the charge that is being considered by the District.”

Members of the West Basin board admit that the notice should have been more detailed. But they argue that the district gave ample publicity to the proposed tax increase by describing it to numerous city councils and public interest groups in recent months.

Charles Stuart, the board’s president, and Lawrence Gallagher, its vice president, said Wednesday that they expected the panel to vote on the new standby levy at a Feb. 26 meeting.

“Why hold more public hearings?” Gallagher asked. “I think what we have done is sufficient. You could go on forever and ever and beat this thing to death.”

Said Stuart: “We’ve done what I thought was prudent and proper. . . . We made a really honest effort.”

At issue is the West Basin’s plans for financing a project intended to drastically reduce the region’s reliance on imported water.

The recycling system would draw waste water from the Hyperion sewage plant in Playa del Rey, treat it at a plant to be built in El Segundo and distribute the reclaimed water. The water--eventually up to 70 million gallons a day--would be sold for uses ranging from cooling industrial plants to watering local parks.

West Basin officials maintain that they need money from the standby charge to pay off bonds they have already sold to finance the construction, which is scheduled to begin this summer. Eventually, they say, growing sales of reclaimed water will allow the district to phase out the property charge.

Monday’s public hearing drew more than 100 residents of the West Basin, which includes Culver City, West Hollywood and Malibu in addition to South Bay communities. Of those who spoke, the vast majority objected to the tax increase.

Numerous speakers complained that by basing its standby charge on parcels rather than water usage, homeowners are being tapped disproportionately compared to industry, which consumes far more water.

“The big (water) users are going to benefit,” said Henry Porter Jr., president of Southwest Community Assn., a residents group in the Westmont area. “The poor people are going to pay.”

Said Albert Adams of Hawthorne: “Everybody’s digging into my pockets. I can’t take much more.”

West Basin officials said that because water use fluctuates, taxes on usage offer a less stable income source than levies on acreage. As a result, they said, bond purchasers would demand a higher interest rate, inflating the cost of the water-recycling project.

Tucker, however, argued that the West Basin had failed to give residents sufficient opportunity to evaluate and--ultimately--pass judgment on such points.

State law would require a public vote on the West Basin tax plan if property owners holding 15% or more of the district’s parcels request it. But the deadline for the request passed Monday night.

Tucker said Wednesday that he will ask the West Basin board to send detailed information on the tax increase to all residents and to hold more public hearings. That, he said, would give residents time to attempt to force a referendum.

In the meantime, Tucker said, he will consider drafting legislation that would automatically require a public vote on such standby charges.

“If they can’t operate aboveboard, maybe we ought to change the way they operate,” Tucker said. “I’d like to see them required to come up with at least a majority vote before they can assess these taxes.”