Candidate questions Moses Lake stormwater fee
MOSES LAKE — I would like to thank you for your invitation to speak on the stormwater issue. I agree it is important for our citizens to have as many of the facts as possible on this subject. Understanding the details will help us make the correct decisions regarding this complex problem.
Our city council has tried for the past four months to come up with a plan to implement the state mandate on stormwater, unfortunately they have known about this mandate since 2007. Finally, after many complaints from a multitude of Moses lake citizens, our council has decided to act and have started with the first reading of this issue.
Under the city staff recommendation and without further investigation the council made a motion to form a new utility district with a annual budget of $750,000.
Let’s look at some of what this would mean to the tax payers?
1. Each resident will pay a minimum of $4 per month to cover the cost
2. Each business will pay a maximum of $175 per month or less
The question we all should be asking the city council and ourselves is, how, on only the recommendation of staff and without asking for details or researching the issue themselves, they vote to saddle the tax payers with $750,000 additional spending.
According to the Department of Ecology (DOE) this stormwater management was mandated for any city over 10,000 population. When I asked the DOE if there was any city in Eastern Washington that is in compliance with this the answer was just one. Pullman has the stormwater mandate in place and has a budget of $400.000 for the program that per DOE is meeting all mandates. So we have a city in Eastern Washington with a population of 27,000 that is in compliance while spending half of what the council says it will cost here, where the population is less than 19,000.
Can we say “enough is enough” stop unnecessary spending? If the City of Pullman can do this for half the money than why can’t we? We need to look at other options and talk to other cities in Eastern Washington and see what they are doing. Lets see if we can get the government out of our pockets as much as possible. Let’s have our city counsel and staff look into putting this into the private sector and see if business can bring the cost down and spend less of our taxes!
Moses Lake citizens you must get involved, you must look at what your city is trying to do. Ask questions, only you can hold them responsible for how they spend what is after all your money, only you can change how our government works!