Cerritos Residents Launch Ballot Fight to Kill Water Rate Increases

April 3, 2026

By Brian Hews

CERRITOS — What started as more than 6,400 written protests over water and sewer rate increases has now escalated into a formal ballot initiative effort aimed at repealing those hikes altogether.

A Notice of Intention to Circulate Petition has been filed, signaling the official launch of a voter-driven campaign to overturn the rate increases approved by the Cerritos City Council on January 26, 2026. 

The proposed measure, titled the Water and Sewer Rate Repeal and Replacement Ordinance, seeks to scrap the recently approved increases and force the city to go back to the drawing board—this time requiring a full, transparent cost-of-service analysis before any new rates can be adopted.

In plain English: voters are attempting to hit the reset button.

According to the filing, residents are not only challenging the increases themselves but also the process behind them, arguing that future rates must be backed by “objective, evidence-based cost-of-service analysis” and subjected to full public scrutiny. 

The initiative would require the City Council to adopt replacement rates within 180 days of voter approval. If the city fails to do so, the ordinance mandates a fallback—reverting to the previous rate structure on an interim basis until compliant rates are adopted.

Translation: no more blank checks.

The measure also requires the city to publicly release financial data, assumptions, and methodologies used to justify any future increases, opening the door to independent review and significantly more transparency than residents say they received during the original approval process.

And there’s more.

Any future rate adjustments would have to strictly comply with Proposition 218 requirements, including formal notice, public hearings, and the ability for residents to protest—rules critics argue were technically followed last time but ignored in spirit.

The filing names three Cerritos residents as proponents of the initiative, officially kicking off the signature-gathering phase needed to place the measure on a future ballot. 

This development comes amid growing political fallout from the January vote, which has already sparked a recall effort targeting Yokoyama and Johnson—two of the councilmembers who supported the increases.

Taken together, the recall and now the repeal initiative represent a one-two punch from residents who appear increasingly unwilling to accept rising utility costs without deeper explanation.

The message from voters is becoming harder to ignore:

You raised the rates. Now explain them—or we’ll repeal them.

Whether the petition gathers enough signatures to qualify for the ballot remains to be seen, but one thing is clear—what began as a protest has now evolved into a full-scale political movement in Cerritos.