Tonights Council Meeting- Who Pays? You do, in reduced svcs.

[Dan Slife]

In light of Mr. Sartin's misunderstanding about tonights council meetnig, can council members and/or mayor George please explain the nature of the utility rate control?

If the public has the power, and continues to restrict the city from raising water rates money from the general fund will have to be diverted to cover the rising cost of water. Remeber, the rising cost of water delivery is out of the city's control. (lest we set up our own intake facitlity) Also, increases in water rates will help fund the replacement of waterlines throughout the city. The diversion of general revenue funds to cover losses incurred on lower-than market cost water will have a negative impact on other city services.

To live in a dense, urban area in the 21st century precludes inevitable scenarios that are largely out of our control.
1. the fanancial burden of maintaing infrastructure is being shifted from the federal to the municipality.
2. federal policies mandating that certain infrastructure projects be completed within a prescribed time frame do not come with funding necessary to complete such repairs.

Thus, federal policy is stripping municipalities of the democratic right to distribute resources as locally elected officails deem prudent and in the best interest of the public good. Ironically, they are increasing contol over monies levied on the local tax base while federal funding recedes.

The same process is taking place in our public school system, where the No Child Left Behind Act is also increasing federal contol over locally levied monies.

[Lynn Farris]

Dan, I think Mr. Sartin has a very clear view of the discussion of the amendments.

The water rate issue has a few parts:

1) Service Fees are held constant. This is a fee that is based on the paper work involved. It is $3.00 per household. At the time this was passed, it was argued by Councilman Brian Flannery that while it may have reflected actual work, it burdened small users who are often on fixed incomes more than large users of water. This fee used to be rolled into the water rate. Council had a vote on this and Brian lost, but then Councilman Tom George voted with Brian. So this service fee isn't cut and dried.

2) The water rate is allowed to go up when the increase in water rates are passed to us from Cleveland. So there is nothing about the cost that is a problem. It is the increase over cost that is a factor.

3) The charge for sewers are flexible and council can increase these at any time. So the sewer infrastructure is not affected at all by this.

4) Council can make a request at any time to the public to increase the percentage over the Cleveland rate, however they never have even tried. Lakewood voters are reasonable. If a case can be made to increase the percentage above cost for the water rate, they will approve it. Look at the Schools

Did you talk to Ms. Elizabeth Koululias? Mr. Sartin did. She can explain very articulately why they did a charter amendment on this.

It did pass in 1998 by the voters. Now we are going back and doing this again. The voters understood what they were doing and are now being asked to review it.

While not a part of the Charter Review, there was lots of questions about why we have our own water department and information was presented that other suburbs that use Cleveland, have lower rates. Even suburbs as old as us. Questions arose about service levels and again, the people who experience both Cleveland service and Lakewood service didn't see much difference.

Lakewood's water bills are extremely high in comparison to what other suburbs are paying. This is a discussion worth having and isn't the black and white situation that some would have you believe.

[Dan Slife]

Lynn,
Thanks for the clarification, I've obviously been misinformed.

Lakewood voters have been extremely reasonable when it comes to supporting the public good. This is going to be a challange as we move further into the new economy, where public good is enemy and private profit king.

Council has many issues on thier plate as of late that deal with reducing the citizen function in governance. It's all very interesting in light of the larger cultural dynamics.

Dan

[Thomas J. George]

Mr. Slife-

You were right the first time.

In 1998 Lakewood voters approved a city charter change that requires voter approval for changes in the basic water rates the city charges its customers.

At the time, this issue was merged with other issues, including voter approval for salary increases for Mayor and Council along with changes in the ability to reduce the income tax credit or increase the water customer service charge.

To help assure passage of these issues the organizers of the ballot initiatives lumped all these new provisions into a section of the Charter (Article III Section 9) which ALREADY had a provision that an increase in the rate of municipal income tax be approved by voters.

The issue, changes and all, narrowly passed.

Upon review, the bi-partisan citizen volunteers of the 2004 Charter Review commission recommended two of the 1998 provisons be removed from the Charter.

One, to which you wrote, is the need for voter approval of the increase in basic water rates, and the other, is the provision that requires voter approval for an increase in the salary of the Mayor or any member of Council.

Council is deciding whether or not to place these issues on the ballot for a vote of the people.

The reason for my support of the water issue is clear. It would be a waste of hard earned taxpayer dollars NOT to have the ability to replace water lines at the same time we are repairing sewers or reconstructing streets. Our streets program lags because we don't have funds in the water fund to repair streets at the same time the street construction is taking place.

In addition, the City of Lakewood is facing a federal EPA mandate to replace our sewer lines. It would be foolish to trench streets and replace sewers and not replace the aging water lines at the same time.

We have over 80 streets that have 100 year old water lines.

With the current revenue and at the current rate of replacement, it will be at least 20 years before some of those streets have new water lines.

Additional resources are needed to accelerate our infrastructure program of streets, water and sewer programs to keep Lakewood competitive.

City wide voter approval for each and every rate increase needed to fund these improvements is cumbersome and delays the essential need we face.

Thanks for your interest in this important issue and supporting the efforts to keep Lakewood strong and competive.

TJG

[Lynn Farris]

Mayor George, I beg to differ with you, while I haven't made up my mind about this issue, I have reviewed it.


I would be happy to refer people to the City Charter Section 9
http://www.ci.lakewood.oh.us/citygovern_council_charter.html

SECTION 9. VOTER APPROVAL OF ORDINANCES AND RESOLUTIONS.
Any ordinance or resolution listed below in paragraph (a) through (e) shall not become effective, after passage thereof, until Council submits such ordinance or resolution to the electorate at a regular Municipal or general election occurring more than 60 days after the passage of the ordinance or resolution, and such ordinance or resolution is approved by a majority of the electors voting thereon in the City;
(a) one providing for an increase in the rate of municipal income tax charged on taxable income within the City under the municipal income tax provisions;
(b) one providing for a reduction in the resident income tax credit for residents of the City under the municipal income tax provisions;
(c) one providing for an increase in the basic water rates charged before any exemption for water customers in excess of any cost increase incurred by the City from the City of Cleveland or any other entity supplying water to the City;
(d) one providing for an increase in the water customer service charge for water customers;
(e) one providing for an increase in the salary of the Mayor, or any member of Council in any capacity.

The change affects portion c, d and e.

Section c is very clear that voter approval is needed only when the amount requested is in excess of any cost increase incurred by the City from the City of Cleveland or any other entity supplying water to the City;

There is no mention of any increase in the sewer rate and that was done so that the infrastructure could be touched. And it has been. There has been increases in the sewer rate since this has gone into effect. In fact I believe there was one since Mayor George has taken office.

The city has never made the case to the citizens about the need for an increase in the water rate over and above the increase that it gets from Cleveland. If so, the citizens of Lakewood are reasonable.

But I for one get a little nervous when I read the Mayor write "City wide voter approval for each and every rate increase needed to fund these improvements is cumbersome and delays the essential need we face. "

Our water rates are already much higher than most suburbs, how many rate increases should we expect?

[stephen davis]

Thank you Mayor George.

You and Vic Nogalo made compelling presentations to the Charter Commission about the water issue. I agree with you.

I was amazed that these amendments ever passed in the first place. I always kind of suspected that people were voting on issues without knowing that these were indeed amendments to the City Charter.

If voters had ever been truly educated about the long-term implications of having these restrictions on our city government, I doubt that reasonable people would have voted for them.

Keep getting the word out.

Steve