.jpg)
8.5%
Metropolitan's price rise in 2025 — and again in 2026
Protect the bill.Build local supply.Keep the water safe.
Division 2 is the retail seat on the Western Water board. It represents most of the district's residential customers — the people who get a bill every month. Every priority below is written for that customer, and every one is something a director can cause to happen.
$49M
Savings from the 2026 San Diego transfer
100% → ~50%
Cut in imported water dependence over 20 years
$19.5M
Federal dollars already brought home to the district
The priorities
Five things a director can actually cause to happen.
01
Protect your bill
Imported water costs more every year. Metropolitan raised its price 8.5 percent in 2025 and 8.5 percent in 2026 and has adopted increases for 2027 and 2028. The director who protects your bill is the one who can read the rate model and challenge it line by line, and who pushes the district to buy less imported water.
Elizabeth will hold the district to the $49 million in savings from the 2026 San Diego transfer and make sure they reach customers.
02
Build local water supply
Western Water has cut its dependence on imported water from 100 percent to about half over 20 years.
Elizabeth will keep that going with named projects: the Arlington Desalter, where the district is deepening wells and adding PFAS treatment; the district's share of the Chino Desalter; recycled water; and the Rubidoux State Water Project partnership. Each acre-foot produced locally is an acre-foot the district does not buy from Metropolitan.
03
Keep the water safe
Every family should trust what comes out of the tap. PFAS treatment is now required by law, and Elizabeth will make sure the district builds it on schedule at the Arlington Desalter and pursues the state and federal money that pays for it.
Â
She will support the maintenance and replacement schedule that keeps pipes and pumps working, because a repair planned in advance costs a fraction of an emergency fix.
04
Bring state and federal dollars home
Elizabeth spent ten years leading Riverside Public Utilities advocacy in Sacramento and Washington. Western Water has already brought home $13.1 million in federal money for the March Air Reserve Base sewer project in Division 2 and $6.45 million to keep PFAS out of the recycling facility.
Â
She will use her relationships and her experience to find the next grant, so that outside money covers capital projects and local customers cover less.
05
Give customers a rate notice they can read
The 2022 Riverside County Grand Jury found that Western Water customers could not understand the district's rate reports and that the most common complaint was the budget-based rate formula, where identical homes pay different amounts.
Elizabeth will push for three things in her first year: a plain-language rate notice and bill explainer, a standing Division 2 customer town hall, and a public review of the budget-based rate formula with the results published in plain English. She supports reviewing the formula and will oppose any proposal that shifts cost onto households that already use water efficiently.