Stormwater Mandate
Summary: Meeting the stormwater mandate will require creativity and planning. A stormwater utility is not the answer. My background as a civil engineer may come in handy.
The Manitowoc website does a good job of explaining the state stormwater mandates that we are subject to, so I will not spend a lot of time discussing the details here. There is a great amount of debate focusing on whether these requirements are "fair" and whether they are correctly specified. A group of City leaders (including Mayor Crawford) is actively lobbying the Wisconsin DNR to make the requirements more reasonable. I support Mayor Crawford's efforts in this regard and would continue them should I be elected.
Basically, our job is to meet State requirements for the removal of suspended solids from our stormwater. We must remove 20% of our existing suspended solids by 2008 and 40% by 2013. (These are some of the arbitrary requirements that the DNR is being pressured to modify.) Based on current best practices, the most effective ways to do this is by improved efficiency in our street sweeping operations (which is usually enough to get to the 20%), and by building "wet" detention basins at strategic points throughout the City (which is enough to get to the 40% IF enough ponds are built). What criterion is used to determine whether we are meeting our goals? A quirky computer model called SLAMM. We established a base line (starting point) and then our 20% and 40% are measured from there.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I am a civil engineer with a background in stormwater management, and my firm (Eastpoint Engineering Group LLC) put in a bid to the City to run the first round of SLAMM models. I felt that I was qualified to do the work, and my bid was much lower than the firm that was ultimately chosen. But I was not chosen due to a perceived lack of experience. This was long before I ran for City Council and now my firm can't bid on City work due to the obvious conflict of interest that would result. I won't use my campaign website to grind a personal ax (axe?), but I know that a lot of readers know of my involvement in this issue and I wanted to put it out in the open. By the way, I am not running for Mayor to right the wrongs that I believe were done to me by this process. But, the way the City chooses consultants is another issue that probably should be revisited.)
Obviously, a big part of this issue revolves around how we are going to pay for it. Building these ponds is very expensive. Many other cities in Wisconsin have addressed the cost issue by creating a stormwater utility. Basically, a utility levies costs based on what is deemed as "fair" with regard to what type of land uses are creating the most water quality challenges. Impervious surfaces (roofs, concrete, etc.) create more runoff and more stormwater problems, so the utility charges parcels according to the amount of impervious surface they contain.
There are factions within City government that strongly support the creation of a stormwater utility to pay for these costs. I do not support the creation of a stormwater utility at this time. Here are my reasons:
1. The stormwater utility is a tax, and I do not like tax increases or additional taxes. In fact, fees charged by a stormwater utility would not be subject to the state maximum-allowed property tax increase. So, if we implement the utility, people could be double-whammied. This strikes me as sneaky and as we have seen in other cities, once these types of taxes, er, fees are implemented, they never go away.
2. A large part of the argument in favor of a utility is that it is "fair"; that is, the properties that are contributing the most to the "problem" should pay the most to help fix it. I'll admit, this argument has a mild intellectual appeal, even as the science of the SLAMM model doesn't fully support it. But--Since when are the taxes that we levy "fair" and since when has that become the overarching concern? Do we charge people for police protection based on how many calls the police have to respond to at their property? If you don't have children or send your children to private schools, do you not have to pay the public school tax? I could go on and on. This is a fascinating argument and I could make a strong case that most of our tax system (property and income) is inherently unfair. But--I am not going to cherry pick taxes that I want by picking and choosing when fairness is important to me. Supporters of the utility who use this argument are sliding down a slippery slope. Moreover, many of the property owners who would be hit the hardest are large employers and retail locations (factories, large stores, etc.) and I don't feel that the City should be placing impediments in the way of our manufacuring and retail climates. I would be in favor of providing tax breaks to people who in some way assist the City in meeting its requirements.
3. I don’t like the attitude that, whenever a new financial challenge presents itself, our first and seemingly only reaction is to try to pass it along to taxpayers. It also seems like every year there is some unique circumstance that prevents us from passing a responsible budget. In 2008, it was the stormwater mandate. In 2009, it was the Aquatic Center. We have already been put on notice that there are a lot of paving projects in the capital plan for 2010. It is expensive to run a city and citizens understandably expect a certain amount of services. But--unexpected expenses should be part of planning for any budget, and we cannot continue to expect taxpayers to shoulder the cost of our lack of foresight.