CC - Minutes - City Council - 4/1/2008 (3)

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Prescott City Council Workshop —April 1, 2008 3 people out there when they begin to jump these rates. Councilwoman Lopas asked regarding the comparison chart of the cities if some of them use the impact fees to put in purple pipe and do some of the other conservation measures. Mr Jackson said he was not sure. Councilwoman Lopas asked about Council policy regarding remodels as brought up by former Councilman Steve Blair last fall. She said this is something that should be taken into consideration if someone is taking an old little house, remodeling it, not putting in a new meter and adding four bathrooms. Mr. Jackson said the idea behind an impact fee by meter size has fairly simple logic behind it. He said the City has to provide a certain amount of capacity and certain amount of water for every 5/8" meter regardless of whether that rate payer uses it or not. That is why it makes logical sense to set an impact fee based on the meter size and this does not put the City in the business of trying to monitor how much water or sewer usage somebody is using inside their house. Mr. Jackson said conceptually, if the meter size does not change the need for the impact fee would not be there. Mr. Norwood added that the City would capture additional on the consumption. Councilwoman Lopas said earlier discussion suggested that if someone has an empty lot they will be charged for the impact but if someone scraped this property and put a whole new structure on it there is no additional fees and it is a burden on the existing users. Councilman Roecker said it is a way to circumvent the system and avoid all of the new impact fees. Councilman Bell said as tough as this is for the Council to consider raising the rates for their citizens one of these days they have to face the truth, just like every citizen of this town does. There have been past councils that have not faced it and they have to provide this service for their citizens and for future growth. Councilman Roecker agreed and said if they look at what is being provided at these rates, even the increased rates, and they compare them to things like how much they pay for TV every month these rates are within a reasonable budget. Mayor Pro Tem Suttles said the timing could not be any worse as to where they are with the economy and what they are trying to do with economic development and growth. She said she wishes they did not have to do this now and that they could have done it at the height of everything going in Prescott. She said it is hard that they keep tapping into their citizens. Councilman Lamerson said he wishes he could get somebody else to do the dirty work but they have to do what they have to do. He said they talk about growth paying for growth; use has to pay for use. Councilman Lamerson said everybody who is using the water system is using the water and if it costs them this much to produce the water then it needs to be paid for.