A controversy that started out with a bang ended with a fizzle Monday night when Jackson's elected representatives managed, amidst no fanfare at all, to raise the city's water and sewer rates.

When first suggested last year, the impending rate hikes were met with stiff opposition from nearly half of the city's voters. The need for the increases came about due to the Amador Water Agency raising the wholesale price of its water - which Jackson buys and resells to its own customers - by 22 percent, as well as permit issues with the state regarding Jackson's effluent flow into Lake Amador.

The city council felt the costs left to them in the wake of these developments could not be absorbed by its current budget. However, due to Proposition 218, simply passing a rate hike on the customers to make up the difference turned out to be a major task. Proposition 218 ensures that citizens have a right to vote on taxes and fees that local governments impose. In the case of water and sewer rates, the measure requires that 50 percent or more of property owners must send protest letters in order to stop a city council from enacting new fees.

"After looking at our situation carefully, we tried to put together what we felt was the least amount of increase," said City Manager Mike Daly. "We sent out notifications about the possibility of the increases and found there was a good deal of opposition."

According to Daly, around 800 letters of protest flooded city offices, roughly amounting to the 50 percent of voter objection needed to kill the hikes. The council decided to put together a citizens committee to study the dilemma, which included community activist Judy Jebian and future AWA Director Bill Condrashoff.

While the committee had little recourse when it came to the pricing of the AWA's wholesale water, it did manage to locate some alternative funding which softened the impact of the sewer hike.

From Daly's perspective, the committee's involvement in the problem may have helped ease the public's resistance. "After sending out our notification letters this second time around, we went from having 800 protest letters to eight," he said. "I think it shows we did our due diligence in ensuring the systems are operating as efficiently as possible and that we're managing our resources."

For Condrashoff, an outspoken critic of some AWA policies before being elected to its board of directors, the committee was hamstrung from getting good results by what he considers the source of the problem - the AWA.

"The rates have gone up mainly because of the AWA's increases," Condrashoff said. "If people want to keep an eye on their rates, they need to actually come to the AWA board meetings and be involved in the process. They can't just sit at home and complain; they need to see what's actually going on. The board that's in place now wants to hear what the public has to say. I know it's important to me to know what my constituents think."