Bell Gardens residents will decide in November whether to sell their city-owned water system to Golden State Water Company for $41 million, after a divided City Council voted 3-2 to put the question on the ballot. The city-owned portion of the system serves roughly 2,112 customers, about one-third of Bell Gardens residents, while Golden State Water already owns and operates the remaining two-thirds of the city's water infrastructure.
The proposal passed the council on a 3-2 vote, with the measure now headed to voters, according to selasun.la. Councilmembers Jorgel Chavez and Marco Barcena voted no, while the other three members of the council voted yes to send the sale to voters, per the same outlet. The ballot measure itself, according to a document from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder, asks whether the measure permitting the City of Bell Gardens to sell the Bell Gardens Municipal Water System to Golden State Water Company should be adopted.
According to the University Times, if the sale goes through, Bell Gardens would cede all of its water rights to Golden State Water, and the proposed deal includes both the water system and those rights. City staff recommended Golden State Water as the buyer after the city began requesting quotes from private companies in late 2025, the University Times reports.
Why City Staff Say the System Is Struggling
City staff pointed to financial pressures as the driving force behind the proposal. Bell Gardens' water system faces challenges tied to aging infrastructure, needed upgrades, regulatory costs and debt, according to the selasun.la report. The University Times similarly describes a city staff analysis that found Bell Gardens faced financial issues tied to aging infrastructure requiring capital investment, regulatory compliance obligations and debt.
Day-to-day operations of the city-owned system are currently handled under contract. The City of Bell Gardens contracts Liberty Utilities to read water meters, prepare customer bills, collect payments and operate the water distribution system. Golden State Water, meanwhile, says on its website that it serves approximately 20,000 customers across its broader Central Basin West Service Area, which includes portions of Bell Gardens.
Council Members Split Sharply Over Local Control
The two no votes framed their opposition around control and accountability. Chavez said residents and ratepayers should come first when deciding whether to sell a public asset, per the University Times, even as he acknowledged one potential upside: a rainy-day fund for Bell Gardens in the next few years. Barcena said proposing a sale of the water system does not maintain local control of city affairs, according to the same report.
Councilmember Francis De Leon Sanchez, who voted for the measure, offered a different take, saying the sale would support the future longevity and health of the city's water system, per the University Times. City staff reportedly said Bell Gardens could use the $41 million in sale proceeds at the council's discretion without restrictions, according to a city staff report cited by the University Times.
What Opponents and the Company Both Say
Water privatization opponents quoted in the University Times argue that water is essential to all life and should not be controlled by private interests. The advocacy group Public Citizen is cited in that report as saying privatization schemes have gone badly elsewhere, with prices increasing, quality suffering and accountability declining. The University Times also cites a 2025 risk analysis study reporting that public utilities nationally are increasingly looking to sell amid higher costs and aging infrastructure.
Golden State Water, for its part, has committed to limiting water-rate increases and following California Public Utilities Commission rules, according to the University Times, and has proposed spreading costs across a large regional customer base to help limit rates. The company says on its site that it serves more than one million people across 81 California communities. Any sale approved by voters would still need to clear another hurdle, since the Public Utilities Commission must approve the proposed sale if voters pass the measure, per the University Times.
What Golden State Water's Rates Could Look Like
Golden State Water's own public materials offer a window into what customers elsewhere in the region could face. The company says its rates are set every three years by the California Public Utilities Commission through a General Rate Case, and it plans to file its next application in July 2026 covering proposed rates and infrastructure investments from 2028 through 2030. That filing proposes more than $59 million in local infrastructure investment across the Central Basin West Service Area, including replacement of 7.3 miles of aging pipelines.
Under that proposal, Golden State Water estimates the average residential customer using 5,984 gallons a month would see a monthly bill rise from $83.07 to $94.50, starting in 2028 at the earliest. Separately, Golden State Water requested Public Utilities Commission approval in August 2023 for increases of 22.95 percent in 2025, 4.42 percent in 2026 and 4.57 percent in 2027, according to the California Public Utilities Commission.
Bell Gardens would not be the first Southern California city to sell part of its water system to Golden State Water. The Norwalk City Council approved the sale of its Artesia Service Area Water System to the company in December 2023, a deal covering 891 service connections serving about 2,300 Artesia residents outside Norwalk's municipal boundaries, according to Golden State Water. Norwalk said at the time that the company had the experience, expertise and capacity to maintain an aging water system that required considerable capital improvements, and the company said it planned to fold the Artesia system into its Central Basin East Customer Service Area, which serves roughly 20,000 customers.
Elsewhere, the city of Claremont's long dispute with Golden State Water offers a different cautionary tale cited in regional coverage. A 2011 rate proposal in that case included a 21.4 percent increase in 2013, followed by increases of 2.7 percent in 2014 and 3.2 percent in 2015, according to the Rose Institute, which also reported that Claremont's water prices ran about 27 percent higher than nearby Glendora's and 62 percent higher than Upland's. The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder estimates the Bell Gardens ballot measure itself could cost approximately $82,460 in taxpayer funds, according to the University Times.
