Saturday, June 20, 2026

Water Company Association Asks Pérez To Strike Provisions in Mutual Water Rate Bill It Says Threaten Privacy

California Association of Mutual Water Companies Executive Director Adán Ortega (left) and State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez.

The California Association of Mutual Water Companies on Friday called on State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez to strike provisions it says threaten privacy and safety from her bill imposing new transparency and notice requirements on mutual water companies that raise rates, the same day the senator held an Altadena news conference promoting the legislation as a safeguard for Eaton Fire survivors facing rising water costs.

The association’s statement, issued hours after Pérez’s morning news conference, framed a dispute that has tracked the measure through the Legislature.

Pérez and Los Angeles County officials describe the bill as a transparency and consumer-protection measure for customers of private, customer-owned water systems, while the industry group says provisions would endanger the privacy and safety of the volunteer board members and shareholder customers those systems serve.

The bill remains under consideration in the Legislature.

In a statement issued Friday, Adán Ortega, the association’s executive director, said he attended Pérez’s news conference and argued that the measure reaches well beyond the community where it has drawn attention.

While the conference focused on complaints from “about eight Altadena residents,” he alleged, SB 1417 “as written would impact every mutual water company across California.”

Ortega said the association does not oppose transparency and that its history is rooted in it.

“Since the dawn of California statehood,” he said, “mutual water companies have built the infrastructure that allows our communities to thrive.”

The association, he added, does not object to the bill’s shareholder- and member-notice provisions for rate increases. But he said the group is “deeply concerned” by provisions it says threaten the privacy and safety of the volunteer board members and shareholder customers they serve.

The statement said the association has asked Pérez to strike provisions it characterized as creating “a dangerous, legal pathway to doxxing.”

It pointed to two: a requirement that companies release “private customer data” — which the association said includes home addresses, water usage and payment history — to “almost anyone who asks”; and a requirement for county-wide radio and newspaper advertising that it said explicitly names the volunteer directors who schedule rate hearings and exposes their home addresses to potential harassment.

The statement also framed the provisions as a safety risk.

It argued that even as the Legislature is actively trying to protect officials from threats and violence, SB 1417 “moves in the opposite direction,” creating what the association called an environment of intimidation for volunteers making tough infrastructure decisions, especially after natural disasters — one it said would ultimately deter community members from serving on water boards.

The text of SB 1417, as analyzed by the Legislature, describes the disputed provisions more narrowly. The bill would require a mutual water company to make available, on request, a copy of its current shareholder list including all contact information, along with any written proposal to levy an assessment or raise water charges.

Under existing law, requests are limited to a defined set of eligible persons, which includes shareholders, certain tenants and occupants, and elected officials who represent customers; SB 1417 would add the chief administrative officers of cities, counties and government water agencies in a company’s service area.

The legislative summary of the bill does not reference water-usage or payment-history records.

On the notice provision, the bill would require a company proposing an assessment or a water-charge increase of more than 20% to prepare a written proposal, convene a public meeting and send the proposal and meeting notice to specified persons and to certain newspapers and radio stations at least 30 days before collecting the assessment or imposing the increase.

In presenting the bill to a Senate committee in April, Pérez said the written proposal would identify which board members voted for a proposed increase.

Pérez, a Pasadena Democrat who represents Altadena in the 25th Senate District, has described SB 1417, which her office calls the Mutual Water Company Rate Disclosure and Fair Notice Act, as a measure requiring mutual water companies to follow notice and public-meeting requirements before raising rates, to provide records on request to eligible persons, and to bar companies from holding a shareholder’s tenant directly responsible for water charges.

At the April committee hearing, she said that unlike public water providers, mutual water companies are not automatically subject to standard transparency requirements, leaving customers with limited information about the systems they depend on.

The bill is rooted in Altadena, where the unincorporated community’s three mutual water companies — Lincoln Avenue Water Company, Las Flores Water Company and Rubio Cañon Land and Water Association — have proposed assessments, surcharges and rate increases as they work to recover from the January 2025 Eaton Fire, which destroyed thousands of homes across their service areas.

Mutual water companies are private nonprofit utilities owned by their customers and are generally exempt from California Public Utilities Commission rate regulation, leaving customers with fewer of the safeguards that apply to investor-owned utilities.

SB 1417 has drawn support beyond the senator’s office. It passed the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee on a 13-2 vote in April, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously days later to back it and a companion measure, SB 1291, by Sen. Lena Gonzalez.

In a county statement, Supervisor Kathryn Barger said Eaton Fire survivors deserve a meaningful seat at the table in decisions about their water systems, and Supervisor Janice Hahn said the customer-owned companies should be accountable to the residents they serve.

The association said its objection is limited to the privacy and safety provisions and that it remains “committed to working constructively” with Pérez to find amendments that, in its words, address her constituents’ local concerns “without compromising the privacy and safety of water systems statewide.” It said it worked with the Legislature on an earlier mutual water company transparency law, AB 240, about a decade ago and does not oppose updating shareholder- and member-notice rules.