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To my constituents:
The Portland City Council is again discussing storm water fee discounts for citizens who maintain a separate storm water (drywell) system. As you might recall, the City promised a 100% storm water discount to citizens with drywells during the annexation process in the mid-1990s. After a favorable court ruling (which said storm water fees that were charged uniformly—without regard to services provided—were not property taxes and were not subject to Measure 5 property tax limits) and with no consideration to the promises made, the City rescinded the discounts.
Dr. Howard Horner and I responded by organizing the East Portland Coalition Against Unfair Storm Water Fees. Following two years of lobbying and a city hearing attended by 300 citizens from east Portland, the City Council promised to implement a small storm water discount (35% rather than 100%) effective January 2001. The City again reneged, however, citing flaws in the city water billing system.
At that point, we encouraged the city to make the discounts retroactive once the new billing software was up and operating. Moreover, in conversations with commissioners we encouraged the city to set aside the funds into a reserve account so the funds would be available to provide the retroactive discounts. The commissioners, arguing they would implement the discounts in the near future, failed to set up such an account.
City Commissioner Dan Saltzman now says the start of a discount program must be postponed until July 1, 2006, while the City continues the search for a new billing program. Given the delay, he wants to give “some reassurance about storm water discounts and a firm response to the question of retroactivity.”
Please do all you can to attend the City Council meeting scheduled for 3:30 p.m.; Wednesday, May 7th in the Council Chambers at City Hall; 1211 S.W. Fourth Ave.
Here are some points on which you might want to testify:
•The City should honor the discount back to January 1, 2001, because the City reached agreement before that date that the discount was the right policy;
• When the City announced a delay, the delay was supposed to be very brief while kinks were ironed out in the billing system;
• Customers whose water bills were screwed up by the new system still were expected to pay the City; by the same principle the City should honor its responsibilities to pay the discount to citizens to whom they owe it;
• The City was urged to set up a reserve in 2001 so that the money owed for discounts would be available; any responsible manager would have set up such a reserve; you can’t shift the responsibility for such managerial failures onto the backs of your customers.
Here are some specific policy recommendations you might want to advocate:
• The City should immediately set up a reserve to pay retroactive discounts
• Under the principles the City has recognized, discounts should be paid going back to at least January, 2001. By then the City had completed its deliberations and had agreed that it owed such a discount to citizens.
In advance of the meeting, you might want to contact your Portland City Commissioners with your opinions. Here are the phone numbers and email addresses:
Mayor Vera Katz, 503-823-4120 mayorkatz@ci.portland.or.us
Commissioner Erik Sten 503-823-3589 esten@ci.portland.or.us
Commissioner Jim Francesconi 503-823-3008 jfrancesconi@ci.portland.or.us
Commissioner Randy Leonard 503-823-4682 rleonard@ci.portland.or.us
Commissioner Dan Saltzman 503-823-4151 dsaltzman@ci.portland.or.us
Sincerely,
Representative Jeff Merkley
House District 47
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