BayREN closes its water conservation program, and Sebastopol is left holding the bag

The closing of the program and an error in city billing cost the city $13,000. We're lucky it wasn't more.

Well, it seemed like a good idea. But like so many good ideas, BayREN’s WU$ave program never really got off the ground in Sebastopol—and the way things turned out, that was probably a good thing.

BayREN (Bay Area Regional Energy Network) was founded in 2012 by ABAG (Association of Bay Area Governments) to promote energy efficiency and water conservation. The Sebastopol City Council voted to join BayREN’s Water Upgrades $ave (WU$ave) program in 2021. California was in a historic drought at the time, so it seemed like a no-brainer.

Here, according to a city press release about the launch of Sebastopol WU$ave, is how the program was supposed to work:

“Single family water customers can enroll now and schedule a free home assessment to select water efficient upgrades that make the most sense for their home. During the assessment, the water specialist collects data on existing fixtures, calculates estimated savings, and assists the customer with product selection, agreement completion, and contractor scheduling. The program contractor visits the home at the appointed time to install the upgrades. Then the program operator verifies installation quality, and the utility [in this case, Sebastopol’s Water District] begins the on-bill charge.”

The “on-bill charge” meant that a small charge would be added to those customers’ water bills, which would pay for the upgrades over time. (The idea was this fee would be offset by the savings created by using less water.) The city of Sebastopol was then supposed to take those fees and give them to the BayREN to pay for the upgrades, which included things like high-efficiency toilets, aerators, and showerheads.

Though Sebastopol inserted flyers about WU$ave in people’s water bills, encouraging people to join the program, only 54 residents ever signed up. All in all, 98 high-efficiency toilets and 89 low-flow showerheads were installed in homes in Sebastopol, with an estimated annual water savings of 291,237 gallons.

Then in July 2025, BayREN informed the City of Sebastopol that it would be closing its WU$ave program on December 31, 2025.

At the time, the full cost of the WU$ave program in Sebastopol had been $37,140.87, of which the city had only repaid $7,120.21 to BayREN, via those little charges on participants water bills. This meant Sebastopol still owed BayREN $30,020.57.

How did that happen? According to the staff report, “Under the terms of the agreement between the City and BayREN, Sebastopol is responsible for paying the entire outstanding balance upon termination of the program, regardless of which party terminated the Agreement.”

The cost was so high for two reasons: 1) Most of the folks involved in the Sebastopol program were still paying off the cost of their upgrades, little by little, on their monthly water bills; and 2) The city had forgotten to charge nine people for their upgrades.

The good news is that BayREN offered to reduce the City’s outstanding obligation to just $13,141.23. This settlement was contingent on the City waiving the remaining payment obligations of property owners involved in the now-defunct WU$ave program.

The council faced a difficult choice—pay ABAG the $13,141.23, out of either the Water Fund or the General Fund (or both) or pay ABAG the full $30,020.57 now and attempt to recoup it by continuing to charge the program’s participants on their water bills. (Program participants’ remaining balances ranged from $34.91 to $4,107.60.)

The advantage of the first option is that it meant the city would pay considerably less than it owed—$13,141.23 instead of $30,020.57. The problem was it would mean that the city would basically be picking up the tab for the remaining costs for the program’s 54 participants. In the case of the nine households that Administrative Services had forgotten to charge, that meant they would get their upgrades for free, and city taxpayers would pick up the tab for that.

The problem with the second option was that the city would have to administer the program (i.e., continue charging participating water customers) for another decade. The liability for any problem with their toilets or shower heads would also become the responsibility of the city. That was a hard pill that no one on the council wanted to swallow.

Public comment was harsh. Robert pointed out the dangers of being an early adopter of obscure government programs, “One of the things we should probably learn is that anytime somebody comes to us with a great idea, and we’re the first city to try to adopt it, we should run like crazy.”

Kate Haug said, “As a person who pays high water bills, I do not want to subsidize a new toilet or shower head for another homeowner.” She suggested that the city should first try to collect the balances from the existing 54 customers. “Shouldn’t the people who receive the benefits pay the bill? If they don’t want to pay, then council needs to pay the balance from the General Fund.”

Steve Pierce, who had originally supported the WU$ave program, said, “It’s really a shame looking back on this. I think Nisa Hinton was the only council member to vote against this idea at the time, and I think it should be a lesson that we really need to keep things simple. And this program was not simple, and it really didn’t have the uptake that we hoped it would.”

“At the same time, every other city in Sonoma County has incentives to lower your water consumption,” he continued. “All the cities have incentives for high-efficiency clothes washers. The city of Sonoma gives away free shower heads and free sink aerators, and many of the other cities have similar programs. I’m sure most of the council members aren’t even aware that the city of Sebastopol has had a separate program of incentives for high-efficiency toilets, up to $150. It’s very obscure, and the list of approved toilets ends in a dead link. I think we do have an obligation to help reduce our water consumption. We end up with less impact on our sewers and our rate payers can end up having lower bills. But we don’t need a complicated program like this was. We can have something cheap, like free shower heads available at City Hall, like the city of Sonoma does. So, sure we need to reflect on the mistake that was made where we went for a very complex program, but let’s see what we can do on a simple level and still improve our water efficiency.”

Commenter Mary Cone honed in on the question of the nine people who were never billed at all. “I’d like to know who is responsible for the unbilled [participants]. Is that Anna [meaning Ana Kwong, director of Administrative Services]? And Anna, if it is, how about you cop to it, tell us you’re sorry, and we go on.”

When it came time for council comment, a furious Mayor Jill McLewis gave Kwong a royal tongue lashing:

I’ve been watching these council meetings for a decade, and I just have to say, over and over again, I’m disappointed with Administrative Services. I’m just going to say it: There’s not enough accuracy. There’s not enough care…And as someone who’s paying these high water bills all the time, whose water bill nearly tripled—if anyone remembers history, I was not supportive of us raising these rates the way we did, because I felt like it punished families—and to just hear this over and over again—and I could go back to the meetings, and perhaps I will—the various mistakes throughout time since I’ve been here on the council—with math and with billing and I just think it’s flagrantly…it’s just outrageous to me. We talk about this over and over again, and frankly, it makes all of us here at the dais look foolish that we don’t have people who actually take care of this billing and get it right. I understand that mistakes are made, but I’m just here to say that I’m tired of seeing these mistakes. I’m just really disappointed, and I’m frustrated, and I am angry because I get these large bills all the time, and I think about all the families that get them. At this point, I’m unhappy that I have to say that we probably do need to move on from this and I would like it to come out of the General Fund, and I’d like it also to come out of someone’s hide, because I’m tired of having these mistakes here. I am sick of it. I’ve watched it for a decade now, and I’ve watched it for years now just sitting here, and it’s always the same department. I think that needs to be stated to the public. I know it sounds harsh and I don’t like to be harsh, but it makes us look foolish up here to all of our residents that we can’t get it right and we consistently miss the mark with it. There’s been misbilling so many times. I know there are other council members here who expressed that too so I’m just saying it publicly what everybody else is feeling. I just believe that it’s best to be straight and for people to understand where that frustration lies, and that’s where it lies with me, because our residents don’t deserve this. They don’t deserve to be treated like this. And I just it makes me so angry. We do need to move on, but I would also like to have a future conversation about this, because I don’t think this can continue.

Vice Mayor Sandra Maurer, who looked horrified by this public dressing down of a city employee, said, “This is the failed program of BayREN. I can’t fault the city at all. The city has worked really hard to try and negotiate a way out. We had a contract with them, and I think that they [city staff] did their best to try to get out of a bad situation.”

After a long discussion, the council unanimously approved the $13,141.23 settlement with BayREN, with the repayment coming out of the General Fund.

After the meeting, I reached out to both Mayor McLewis and Interim City Manager Mary Gourley to see if there had been any fallout from McLewis’s comments about the competency of Administrative Services. I asked McLewis if she had a list of all the mistakes she’s mentioned and if there had been any follow-up discussion about her complaint. I didn’t hear back from her. I asked Mary Gourley if Ana Kwong still had her job. Gourley replied, “Administrative Director Ana Kwong is still employed by the City. Matters involving City employees are confidential personnel matters and cannot be discussed in a public forum.”

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