Welcome Novato Sanitary District Ratepayers!

ACCNovato needs your help! Attend the next Novato Sanitary District Board meeting on Monday, July 27th, at 6:30 p.m. at a special location - the Hill Community Room behind the Margaret Todd Senior Center located at 1560 Hill Rd., Novato. Demand the board delay the decision on outsourcing pending the results of the EPA criminal investigation and demand they provide a more inclusive public review of the contract operations and maintenance proposals. The more people who attend and address the Board, the more effective we will be. There is power in numbers. Map to this NSD Board Meeting (opens in new window)

Latest News!

The Novato Sanitary District Manager/Engineer has recommended the board choose Veolia, a French-held multi-national corporation, to contract with for the operations and maintenance of Novato's wastewater treatment. Say no to profits leaving Novato and going to France!  ACCNovato successfully lobbied the Novato Sanitary District Board to move the meeting to a time when ordinary Novato citizens can attend. The Monday, July 20th meeting had 15 to 1 speakers urging to board to vote against privatization. The public speakers highlighted local California problems known to have been caused by privatization, NSD managements' inability to make sound decisions as shown by current EPA criminal investigations and electronic loss of 500K, and the grossly inflated consultancy option used by Manager-Engineer James to makes claims of 7.2 million in savings. They base these savings by comparing 5 years of privatization to 5 years of consultants working with NSD employees. Why would 34% of the plant yet to come online require 5 years of consultants although the 66% currently online has been accomplished by vendor trending and the current employees?

About ACCNovato:

The Alliance of Concerned Citizens of Novato (ACCNovato) is an association formed by Novato residents to prevent the privatization (outsourcing) of the operations and maintenance of Novato Sanitary District's new $90 million wastewater treatment facility. ACCNovato is an alliance of citizens who wish to keep our Novato utilities public with local control!

STOP Privatization of Novato’s new $90 Million Wastewater Treatment Facility!

Top 5: Why Wastewater Privatization Fails:

    1.   Rate Increases

    2.   Customer Service Declines

    3.   Environmentally Damaging Track Records

    4.   Corporate Profits Funnel Money Out of Our Communities

    5.   Jobs are Lost

We are a community fighting back to keep our wastewater local, public, affordable, and sustainable by challenging the corporate machine.

This is NOT a labor issue! This is about maintaining local control of our public utilities, about preventing declines in customer service, about stopping rate hikes designed to pay the corporate profits, about preventing potential environmental damages.

ACCNovato has organized a showing of the movie Thirst (a documentary about privatization of utilities). We are also examining all options to stop the district from moving forward with privatization at the current breakneck pace until they have had a fully independent review panel examine the current plan.

We need assistance all fronts. If you are willing and able to donate your time please contact us at info@accnovato.org.

ACCNovato Highlighted Media:

The Commonwealth Club of California (the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum have Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow discuss:

   The Privatization of Water (FORA TV - opens in new window) - This is a must see!!!!

To learn more visit our Resources page.