By Lauren McSherry

For years, Los Altos resident Gerry Madea has accused the city of illegally misappropriating thousands of dollars from its sewer enterprise fund. Last week, the city council did something about it, but the council’s action has the mayor crying foul.

Lame-duck Councilman King Lear led two motions during the Nov. 29 council meeting that addressed the concerns of sewer operation critics Madea and Tom Burns about the handling of money related to the city’s sewer enterprise fund.

The two alleged that the city should be returning interest earned from the enterprise fund back to it rather than disbursing the money into the city’s general fund. In addition, Madea, on numerous occasions, told city officials that surplus proceeds from the sale of the Los Altos Treatment Plant to Palo Alto should be put into the enterprise fund.

Palo Alto city officials have expressed interest in buying the property, but no deal is currently in progress.

Lear’s motions, which passed 3-2, attended to the first allegation and put in place a framework for handling surplus money if the sale to Palo Alto does go through. Mayor David Casas and Councilman Ron Packard cast the dissenting votes.

Casas told the Town Crier he voted against the motions because they came too early in the process. Casas said councilmembers had discussed the interest

allocation issue with Assistant City Manager Starla Jerome-Robinson. And as a result, city staff was preparing a recommendation about how the money should be allocated. A recommendation was expected in January.

“They were premature in their adoption,” Casas said of the motions. “Not that I’m against the concept. But we need to not make decisions like that on the fly without having the appropriate analysis by our staff.”

Prior to the vote on the motions, Packard read a statement that even though city officials do not disagree with claims made by residents in public, that does not mean they concur.

Casas said he would have preferred to wait before voting on the two issues until staff had completed the necessary research and made a recommendation.

“There is a certain due diligence necessary to ensure that the decision being taken is appropriate,” Casas said. “… Again, what’s the rush?”

City Manager Phil Rose said the motion on the allocation of interest set a policy statement for the city.

For 40 or 50 years any interest earned was used for general fund purposes, he said.

“The council has made different determinations because it is allowable to put the dollars in the general fund,” he said. “This is an issue for the council of what do they think is the right thing to do, not what do they think is the legal thing to do.”

He confirmed that City Attorney Jolie Houston had advised the council that either approach was legal.

During the meeting the council also adopted the Sewer Master Plan, which has been nearly three years in the works.

Under the plan, residents will pay approximately $2.75 a month more every year until fiscal year 2023-2024, when monthly costs will rise from $21 now to $64.72. That’s a climb from the current $252 annually to more than $776.

The rate increase will help pay for the $47 million in capital improvements called for in the plan.

“We are now at the point where we must ramp up our maintenance program to meet the demands of an aging system,” according to a report to the council. The system is nearly 50 years old and therefore requires increased maintenance because, over time, sewer mains sag, become cracked or corroded and clogged with tree roots.

The new plan also recommends that the city increase the amount of staff time devoted to sewer maintenance by approximately sixfold.

According to the plan, the city should employ a crew comprising two maintenance workers, an engineer, a sewer supervisor and an office assistant.

Recommendations for this year in the 300-plus-page document include spending $300,000 on televising and repairing sewers, allocating $270,000 for treating root blockages chemically and hiring a full-time sewer engineer.

The system has increasing amounts of deteriorating pipe joints and root intrusion problems, the primary causes of mainline backups, according to a report to the council.