Stormwater Management a New Utility Fee
Prince George, B.C.- Be prepared for another "utility"to be added to your utility bill. It won’t likely happen until 2015, but the idea is to have a stormwater management fee added to your bill.
The move would see the snow removal, ice control and storm water management moved out of general taxation, and shifted to your utility bill. So, snow removal will no longer fall under general taxation, and the funds will be dedicated to this new category.
The idea is that the storm water drainage system has 329 kilometers of main, 1088 kilomeersof ditches, and 4,414 storm waterservices, up until now, the repair and maintenance of storm water services is paid for through the general tax levy. This move would see that amount removed from the general levy, shifted to a utility fee, and all those funds collected would be dedicated to that specific service.
The cost to bring this utility on line would need $250 thousand for next year, to hire a consultant, public consultation and putting together a plan. Then in 2014, another $350 thousand dollars would be needed to complete the consultation, create a data base for billing, train staff and role out the program.
The system being considered is what is called a "Snow Ice, and Stormwater Tiered flat rate funding model which considers runoff by land use with the addition of snow and ice management by location/section of the city."
The City’s Committee of the Whole has supported this move and it will now be up to Council to have the final say.
What the rate would be, has yet to be determined.
Comments
I assume will be based on amount of land the owner owns. Wonder how this utility will be applied to strata owners.
Luckily I was smart enough to sell my houses last year and get out of PG. No more cake from me for these outrageous taxes and fees. Everyone should sell and move away from there. How are people suppmsed to afford all these new taxes now for the once or twice a year snow plough they get on thier street if they are lucky? Oh well I aint paying it so I am happy.
Soon the HST will be EXTINGUISHED. along with the full liberal contingent now ripping you off daily with this illegal tax.
When the smart growth on the ground people came to town they were promoting several different approaches to handling stormwater from what has come to be âstandardâ practice. One was to improve the handling of stormwater by reducing the amount that is dumped into the rivers and rather detaining it and retaining it locally, such as the retention ponds at UNBC and at the entrance to College Heights at Domano and Hwy 16. In other cases using softer surfaces in places like parking lots, using boulevards to drain water from adjacent hard surfaces, etc.
So, now that they will charge for handling stormwater, and we cannot get Mother Nature to pay a user fee for the mess she is creating in our communities, it seems to me that we should not be merely charging our citizens for the questionable practices we have developed in our cities over time, but reviewing what those practices have become and starting to reverse the trend of spend, spend, spend to supposedly solve the problems we have created and continue to create for ourselves.
We do not have an open cheque book, so what is the City doing to spending wisely? Inquiring minds want to know what is happening with our money. That is my question, has been for some time, and will continue to be until we hire a few people to watch over the spending our elected officials are setting up to supposedly benefit us.
How will incentives be built into the âuser feeâ for land owners who build a development which takes handles their own stormwater management control system internally without burdening the City collection system?
I think that all those useless advisory committees that Council creates and disbands at will ought to be changed to quality control oversight committees since Councillors typically do not have the expertise required to do that, but there are plenty of people in the community who do.
There will have to be some serious push back by the taxpayers of Prince George, or this Mayor and Council will put us into the poor house. (Some people are already there)
I live within city limits in a neighborhood that has no curb/gutter, no city sewer, no city water, a once-or-twice a year visit from the plow truck (never had the end of my driveway cleaned up after)and I can’t think how they can tax me more for the ditch and culvert that I have on my lot. If I had gutters and storm sewers, I would pay if everyone else had too. This city core thing is turning into an excuse to do stuff under the guise of public consultation.
Why would we pay 250 thousand and 350 thousand just to bring this on line and to pay a consultant??? Leave things as they are and use that money for what it was intended for. We do not have bottomless pockets. I wonder if this so called consultant knows anybody at city hall.
Pretty soon the city will be wanting to tax us for the air we breathe too.
Wouldn’t be so bad if they actually treated the storm water but they don’t, they only ‘direct’ it, polluted as it is, back into the rivers.
So in a nutshell, they will spend $600,000 plus to change how they get the money, but it will still be from the same tax base. I assume what will happen is taxpayers who are believed to create more run-off will pay more, and those who create less, pay less etc. So they are going to use the money to better identify who should pay.
So if we’re going to go down this road of user pay, let’s extend it to everything. Pools, rinks, etc. make the fee to use it equal to the cost of running it. I mean, if the guy with 40 acres in town has to pay for all the water he creates, he certainly shouldn’t have to pay for the pool he never uses.
And at the end of the day, the city is $600,000 poorer.
It seems to me there really needs to be a party system developed to fix the mess at City Hall.
This notion of “everyone is an independent” is clearly not working because at election time, each candidate simply talks out of their ass, promises anything they want, but can’t be held responsible in the end because they are “just one councillor.”
A party system (not BS slate, but real electoral organization) could develop and present a comprehensive and cohesive platform and win with a mandate to implement it and be judged on it’s achievement.
The first group that develops an elector organization and platform gets to use the campaign slogan “Stop the Insanity”.
bohemian – there already is a “party system” at City Hall.
Our mayorette, council-persons and over-paid managers are having a party at the tax-payer’s expense.
I am seriously ready to move out of this city. It really is in a mess.
The problems at City Hall, and Prince George were created by previous Mayors and Councils.
They borrowed all the money, built all the (not necessary) high priced Capital Projects, and of course most of them are now long gone. Those who are left, ie; Krause, Green, Skakun, were involved for the past 15 years, and must take some responsibility for the mess that they created.
We have a serious problem. $17 Million a year to service debt. $115 Million long term debt by 2015. Infrastructure that is falling apart. High cost of Managers, and employees’s, extremely high cost of Protective Services, and Recreation.
The solution for those at City Hall, especially the Finanace Committee, is to tax the s..t out of us for the next 10 years to make up for thier screw ups.
In the meantime they are allowing all the proceeds from the sale of all City land in Prince George to go to the Capital Projects Fund, and will not use any of this money for debt reduction, or infrastructure. The sale of the Pine Vally Golf Course in itself could generate $20 Million dollars over the next 10 years. Not to mention the Playhouse Theatre property, or the Roller Rink.
My guess is that the City intends to resurrect the River Road dike project, and the performing arts centre project, after the next election and after the Winter Games. They will use the money from the Capital Projects Fund which by then should be substantial, so that they wont have to go to an AAP, or to a referendum.
So more Capital (unwanted) projects, more tax increases, more buffoonery at City Hall, and at the end of the day, we will all suffer.
There is a way out, and that is to form a group to stop the madness.
When the city had a different balance sheet a decade ago I was in favour of a PAC. It would still need to make a solid business case (I wish other projects had to cleart the same bar).
But I am dead against an AAP; I’ve recommended to members of the society they need to INSIST on a referendum if city borrowing is required, and they need to make sure their plan is so good that it would win. Otherwise forget it.
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