Search Results: Water Rates

Against my better judgement, I agreed to go to a meeting with Theresa Stehly, Kermit Staggers and other concerned citizens at city hall to talk about water rates with Public Works Director, Mark Cotter, Water Super, Greg Anderson and Sewer Super, Trent Lubbers. The meeting ended about 30 minutes ago.

Before I get into the meeting itself, and what I took from it, I first want to talk about meeting with our public officials. In defense of Mr. Cotter, he did tell Theresa we had 30 minutes. Also in Mark’s defense we was very polite about it. But while Mark and Greg were discussing the issues with us, Trent kept writing little notes, fidgeting and making faces. Sorry, Trent, but we pay you, (Almost $94,000 a year) you have to hear us out. I found his behavior unacceptable, but not surprising. Like little kids in a sandbox they like to pout when they don’t get their way. I don’t think we took anything away from them except about 35 minutes that we are ultimately paying them for anyway. The meeting actually cost me 60 cents in parking meter fees.

The MEETING

I actually learned a few things, but mostly some things were confirmed to me that I already knew about;

• There IS a sliding scale on water rates based on conservation (still not sure how it works)

• The philosophy before watering restrictions were put into place was, SELL AS MUCH WATER AS POSSIBLE!

Conservation is a good thing and while the 3 directors bragged about conservation it was confusing because they are charging us higher rates because we need to fix infrastructure? Huh? If we are using less water, shouldn’t our rates be lower because of less stress on infrastructure? Seems like we are paying for the sins of the past.

• As Kermit put it to me after the meeting. “The city is essentially penalizing us for conserving.” See, while Greg bad mouthed the old way of doing things, selling as much water as possible, he was unable to show us that conservation is saving us any money.

• I brought up the 2nd penny and how it should be used for infrastructure. Theresa also brought up several ‘unneeded’ projects in the city that the 2nd penny is paying for, which got an interesting response from both Cotter and Anderson, “You’ll to talk to those departments about that.” So it seems each department fights like a bunch of little kids over rootbeer hard candy thrown from floats at a parade. Shouldn’t these departments be working together on the CIP budget (which they do). So why did they try to make it sound like they don’t?

• Lewis & Clark. According to Greg, L & S has cost us $84 million so far. L & S is their biggest argument as to why our rates need to increase. So as we were getting up to leave I asked them, “When will we use L & S to it’s fullest capacity?” Greg told me that L & S is really expensive and is only for emergency reasons (no kidding it is expensive, we have dumped $84 million into it and haven’t got a drop of water). Mark laid out that they will use more of the water each year gradually, with NO date when we will be using it to full capacity, if ever. And here is the crux of the water rate increase. Our rates are being increased to pay principal and interest on a pipe we don’t have yet, and when we do get it we won’t use. Huh?

I didn’t want to get into the tax shifting and the events center during the meeting, even though Theresa touched on it. I hopefully will get a chance to talk about that at the council meeting tonight. Item #32.

This is a flyer that will be handed out at today’s informational and council meeting.

Bread for the World chimes in;

2. A proposal to raise water rates.
Increases for sewer rates have already been approved. Now there is a significant rate increase (14% proposed for water).  Since 2006 water rates have already been increased 89%. This new proposal would mean a 115.6% total (cumulative) rate increase since 2006.
For example, a $10 water bill in 2006 would be $21.56 next year for the same amount of water used.
• Presentation at 4:00pm tomorrow (Monday) at the Informational Meeting about why the proposed increases.
• Public input allowed, early in the 7pm city council meeting: tomorrow (Monday) June 6.
• First reading at the 7pm city council meeting: Monday June 13. Public input allowed.
• Second reading (ie, the vote!), at the 7pm city council meeting: Monday June20. Public input allowed.

About the 4:00pm Informational Meetings:
They are located at Carnegie Town Hall, 235 W.10th St., same as the evening meeting of City Council. There are a few free parking spots on 10th St. Otherwise, ride the bus, or pay parking, or ask at the bank next door about their lot.
The public may come but there is no public input at that time. But I hear it is very good to be in the room for these, if you can, because (1) it shows an interest (2) you see not only the presentation, but the questions from the council to the presenters and their answers, (3) you have the same info the council has and you can make up your own mind.

The presentations can be found at this web address:
http://docs.siouxfalls.org/sirepub/mtgviewer.aspx?meetid=1506&doctype=AGENDA
You find the item of interest in the agenda, click on it, and look on the right side for the pdf of the presentation.

About the 7:00pm City Council meetings:
They are located at Carnegie Town Hall, 235 W.10th St., the Carnegie Building. Parking is free at that time of day, but there is no bus service to get you home from the meeting.

There is time for public input near the beginning of each meeting. Anyone may speak on any topic for a max of 5 minutes. If your topic is something on the agenda, you may be asked to wait til it comes up during the meeting.

It would be really good to have people at any or all of these meetings. But if you cannot come here is
How to contact City Council:
If you cannot come, you could express your opinion to the city council members. (Please use your own words. A forwarded email does not have much impact.)
Here are their emails:
vbrown@siouxfalls.org, kandersonjr@siouxfalls.org, RRolfing@siouxfalls.org, saguilar@siouxfalls.org, jentenman@siouxfalls.org, gjamison@siouxfalls.org,dkarsky@siouxfalls.org, MErpenbach@siouxfalls.org, mhuether@siouxfalls.org

You could call them or write to council members at home, or leave messages at their city phone numbers, found here:   http://www.siouxfalls.org/Council/members

Thanks on behalf of so many people who are struggling in this economy.

Remember not to long ago the increases to your water bill? Well that was apparently only for reclamation/sewer. They are proposing another increase to water (Document).

Some would ask why this wasn’t just done all at the same time? IMO – because they want to jack up rates in baby steps. It’s time for citizens to start questioning these massive rate increases during a time when COLA for most people doesn’t even exist. Need to fix current infrastructure? Pull it out of the general fund. Stop increasing rates. The city has plenty of revenue to keep up with infrastructure, they just need to change spending priorities like the rest of us have during a down economy.

Stehly’s letter has perfect timing, the council votes on the fee increases tomorrow. I think this paragraph says it all;

The city’s priority has not been to spend tax dollars on basic infrastructure such as sewer upgrades and streets. Understandably, paying taxes and fees is necessary for living in our fine city, but we need to work to keep the basic essentials such as water and sewer rates reasonable. We need to work to use more efficiently the huge amount of added revenue that past water and sewer rate increases have brought.

This is what I cannot figure out. Why is it that we have to continue to raise rates when the money is already there to repair these pipes. One word: Greed.

UPDATE

I see at last night’s council meeting all but one councilor voted for water increases and all six present voted for sewer increases (Rolfing and Jamison were absent);

“There is no way to dress up a vote like this,” Councilor Vernon Brown said. “It does stink, pun intended.”

What needs to be ‘dressed up’ anyway? It’s simple. There is money in the CIP to pay for these repairs, frickin’ use it. This should have been a no-brainer. Instead our stubborn council justified the increase because of sewer repairs. But what if they would not have voted for the increases? The pipe would have still been fixed. Why? Already budgeted and planned, something the council failed to recognize. Imagine that.