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

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Prescott City Council Regular Voting Meeting — October 28, 2008 Page 16 thought maybe he missed something, so he spent the weekend reading it again. He concluded, again, that it was a pretty good job. Then, he asked what he was missing and he thought it was some proof that what the answer provided in the study is an accurate study. He went back and did something different. He took a review of the wastewater impact fees proposed and saw that it was 59.8% because it has not been updated for 14 years. That gave him a percent per year of 4.6% if they had been doing it all along. Then, he asked what independent information he could get that said that was either good or bad. He looked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics data available on the web and chose highway and street construction indexes, looking at the heavy construction index. He found that the BLS from 1995 to 9/08 increased 107 points, or 90.3% during that period, an average increase of 6.9% per year. The BLS data for heavy construction for the same time period increased by 84.8 points, an increase of 65.3% during that period, or an average of 5.0%. Comparing this to the 4.6% increase — they both succeed what is being recommended in the study. His conclusion is that they would be higher if used nothing but the index, and to him that supports the study and the recommendations. Mr. Kindig said that they already talked about what would happen if construction continued without the fees. The funds would come from the citizens somewhere. He had two recommendations to be considered: 1) the fees proposed are reasonable based on the work he did over the weekend; and 2) if the impact fees are not approved and construction continues, they add information to the City's financial statements showing the annual and cumulative costs for growth that are being paid by the residents of Prescott. Steve Conrad, 1753 Rolling Hills Drive, Executive Director of Central Arizona Partnership, said that he first wanted to thank the Council for allowing the 45 days extra to review these further with the YCCA. He said that it was his understanding that their charge was to consider alternatives, not necessarily make recommendations. They did provide a short-list of alternatives. They } are not in favor of approving the fees as they are right now. He feels sorry for Jane Bristol; he would not want to be in her shoes trying to entice commercial development into the City with the fees being proposed. The numbers for a 1" meter go from $18,000 to $35,000, on a 1 1/2" meter from $36,000 to $71,000 and on a 2" meter they jump 98% from $56,000 to over $113,000. That is a major hurdle to stimulating jobs. Mayor Wilson said that those fees are being raised substantially because they have not been raised for a number of years. That would say that the contractors had their hands in his pocket when those fees were not raised. yy§