As of early this week, only 13 Oakley property owners had filed a written protest to the proposed Ironhouse Sanitary District annual rate hike. The increase will help pay for a new $64 million sewage treatment plant and other state-mandated upgrades.

Approximately $50 will be tacked on each year for the next five years and top out at $680 per year - unless 51 percent of property owners file written protests by the June 5 public hearing in which the rate hike is expected to be approved. Oakley and Bethel Island residents currently pay $412 annually for sewage treatment.

Vince Sortile, an Ironhouse customer, said enough is enough. "We are now staring down the barrel of a big gun with an annual increase all the way to 263 percent in just about a 10-year period," he wrote in a letter to the Ironhouse board of directors. "It might just be me, but if I were a member of the current City Council, I would come after you guys with guns, knives and sticks for trying to screw up my city."

Photo by Ruth Roberts

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