The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) The ongoing, historic drought has made clear that California must invest in a 21st century water management system capable of effectively meeting the economic, social, and environmental needs of the state.
(b) Sufficient and reliable funding to pay for local water projects is necessary to improve the state’s water infrastructure.
(c) Proposition 218 was approved by the voters at the November 5, 1996, statewide general election. Some court interpretations of the law have constrained important tools that local governments need to manage storm water and drainage runoff.
(d) Storm waters are carried off in storm sewers, and careful management is necessary to ensure adequate state water supplies, especially during drought, and to reduce pollution. But a court decision has found storm water subject to the voter-approval provisions of Proposition 218 that apply to property-related fees, preventing many important projects from being built.
(e) The court of appeal in Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Ass’n v. City of Salinas (2002) 98 Cal.App.4th 1351 concluded that the term “sewer,” as used in Proposition 218, is “ambiguous” and declined to use the statutory definition of the term “sewer system,” which was part of the then-existing law as Section 230.5 of the Public Utilities Code.
(f) The court in Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Ass’n v. City of Salinas (2002) 98 Cal.App.4th 1351 failed to follow long-standing principles of statutory construction by disregarding the plain meaning of the term “sewer.” Courts have long held that statutory construction rules apply to initiative measures, including in cases that apply specifically to Proposition 218 (see People v. Bustamante (1997) 57 Cal.App.4th 693; Keller v. Chowchilla Water Dist. (2000) 80 Cal.App.4th 1006). When construing statutes, courts look first to the words of the statute, which should be given their usual, ordinary, and commonsense meaning (People v. Mejia (2012) 211 Cal.App.4th 586, 611). The purpose of utilizing the plain meaning of statutory language is to spare the courts the necessity of trying to divine the voters’ intent by resorting to secondary or subjective indicators. The court in Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Ass’n v. City of Salinas (2002) 98 Cal.App.4th 1351 asserted its belief as to what most voters thought when voting for Proposition 218, but did not cite the voter pamphlet or other accepted sources for determining legislative intent. Instead, the court substituted its own judgment for the judgment of voters.
(g) Neither the words “sanitary” nor “sewerage” are used in Proposition 218, and the common meaning of the term “sewer services” is not “sanitary sewerage.” In fact, the phrase “sanitary sewerage” is uncommon.
(h) Proposition 218 exempts sewer and water services from the voter-approval requirement. Sewer and water services are commonly considered to have a broad reach, encompassing the provision of clean water and then addressing the conveyance and treatment of dirty water, whether that water is rendered unclean by coming into contact with sewage or by flowing over the built-out human environment and becoming urban runoff.
(i) Numerous sources predating Proposition 218 reject the notion that the term “sewer” applies only to sanitary sewers and sanitary sewerage, including, but not limited to:
(1) Section 230.5 of the Public Utilities Code, added by Chapter 1109 of the Statutes of 1970.
(2) Section 23010.3, added by Chapter 1193 of the Statutes of 1963.
(3) The Street Improvement Act of 1913.
(4) L.A. County Flood Control Dist. v. Southern Cal. Edison Co. (1958) 51 Cal.2d 331, where the California Supreme Court stated that “no distinction has been made between sanitary sewers and storm drains or sewers.”
(5) Many other cases where the term “sewer” has been used interchangeably to refer to both sanitary and storm sewers include, but are not limited to, County of Riverside v. Whitlock (1972) 22 Cal.App.3d 863, Ramseier v. Oakley Sanitary Dist. (1961) 197 Cal.App.2d 722, and Torson v. Fleming (1928) 91 Cal.App. 168.
(6) Dictionary definitions of sewer, which courts have found to be an objective source for determining common or ordinary meaning, including Webster’s (1976), American Heritage (1969), and Oxford English Dictionary (1971).
(j) Prior legislation has affirmed particular interpretations of words in Proposition 218, specifically Assembly Bill 2403 of the 2013–14 Regular Session (Chapter 78 of the Statutes of 2014).
(k) In Crawley v. Alameda Waste Management Authority (2015) 243 Cal.App.4th 396, the Court of Appeal relied on the statutory definition of “refuse collection services” to interpret the meaning of that phrase in Proposition 218, and found that this interpretation was further supported by the plain meaning of refuse. Consistent with this decision, in determining the definition of “sewer,” the plain meaning rule shall apply in conjunction with the definitions of terms as provided in Section 53750.
(l) The Legislature reaffirms and reiterates that the definition found in Section 230.5 of the Public Utilities Code is the definition of “sewer” or “sewer service” that should be used in the Proposition 218 Omnibus Implementation Act.
(m) Courts have read the Legislature’s definition of “water” in the Proposition 218 Omnibus Implementation Act to include related services. In Griffith v. Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency (2013) 220 Cal.App.4th 586, the Court of Appeal concurred with the Legislature’s view that “water service means more than just supplying water,” based upon the definition of water provided by the Proposition 218 Omnibus Implementation Act, and found that actions necessary to provide water can be funded through fees for water service. Consistent with this decision, “sewer” should be interpreted to include services necessary to collect, treat, or dispose of sewage, industrial waste, or surface or storm waters, and any entity that collects, treats, or disposes of any of these necessarily provides sewer service.
(Added by Stats. 2017, Ch. 536, Sec. 2. (SB 231) Effective January 1, 2018.)