CC - Agendas - City Council - REGULAR - 11/4/2008

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Prescott City Council Regular Voting Meeting — October 28, 2008 Page 14 Steve Blair, 1802 Northside, said that he was glad to see Councilman Luzius sitting there, no matter what he may say from time to time, he does respect him. He said that they had dialogue about a 5,000 sq. ft. home that if it had a sprinkling system, they would be allowed to have a 5/8" meter. With this change of rates, he asked if that would change. Councilman Luzius said that would not change. Mr. Blair said that he agreed with Councilman Lamerson. If they believe they are going to hang the bone around the person moving into the community and charge all the rates based on new growth, they are not going to fix their infrastructure. There has to be a combination of property tax, to fix what is there now, plus an element that is tied to growth. He said that he has not heard anyone talk seriously about a property tax increase. Back in the day of Phil King, the Councils reduced and reduced. They are in a time right now where they need to have a property tax increase to pay for a lot of the underground infrastructure that has been in place for years. Mr. Blair said that they had a sewer line blow up right behind Mountain Oak Charter School and the citizens of the City paid for the repair and the damage to the school. He asked how many times they are going to allow that to happen. Mayor Wilson said that, as stated earlier by Councilwoman Lopas, the water rates were raised substantially to pay for repairs and the growth is paying for new construction. Mr. Blair said that he would suggest then that they change the General Plan that states "fixture units" to determine the fees. Chris Hoy, 1880 Coyote Road, said that he was the President of CWAG and was there to read a four-sentence statement, approved by the Board of Directors, "Water and wastewater infrastructure for new users should not be subsidized by current residents. If water use is subsidized, our goal of conservation will be substantially negated. CWAG supports full and fair impact fees for all new users. If the jurisdictions wish to promote work-force housing or other new construction, they should do so in a way that does not subsidize the cost of water or discourage conservation." Leslie Hoy, 1880 Coyote Road, said that she was speaking as a member of the "impact fee committee" that was put together on August 26, when she volunteered as a citizen, and later Howard Mechanic and John Danforth also became members of the committee. The citizens were only invited to participate in the committee twice, although there were a lot of other meetings that went on. Mr. McConnell was pretty good about keeping a record of the correspondence, which they did receive. She had to leave early at the last meeting so she wrote to Mr. McConnell a question regarding the suggestion to delay implementation of the fees for an additional six