October 30, 2008
A group that has called itself the Concerned Taxpayers of El Paso submitted a 426-page petition late today, calling on City Council to take control of the stormwater utility away from the city's Public Service Board.
“We’re the fourth poorest city in the country, and we have the highest stormwater fees,” businessman Lee Urias, one of the group’s leaders, said.
With authorization from City Council, the El Paso Water Utilities’ Public Service Board started operating the stormwater utility March 1 and assessing fees to water customers that sparked immediate opposition.
The PSB responded by reducing fees twice, the first time because of an error in billing calculations that would have brought in $6 million more than was budgeted and hit owners of large parking lots particularly hard.
Urias, said they need 2,374 signatures or 5 percent of the number of voters in the last city election to force City Council to consider the proposed ordinance printed on each page.
More than 2,800 registered voters signed the petition, Urias said.
City Clerk Richarda Momsen said her office has 30 working days to certify that the petition contains the signatures of the required number of registered voters.
If City Council votes down the proposed ordinance to take control of the stormwater utility or alters it in a way the group finds unacceptable, the group would have to mount a second petition drive to put the proposal before voters in the May 9, 2009 city elections.
Urias, Gerald Miller and Jerry Thiedt, who presented the stack of petitions to the City Clerk’s office shortly before 5 p.m. today, said they are ready for the second drive.
“We have the sites set up and can move a lot faster now on a second petition to put it on the ballot so voters can have a say,” Urias said.
Miller, an El Paso Honda executive, said the two rate reductions that PSB approved in an effort to quell a community uprising didn’t go far enough.
Putting the stormwater utility under the control of City Council, Miller said, will restore the accountability he said is lacking with the PSB’s unelected board of directors.
City Council formed the stormwater utility in the aftermath of the severe flooding in August 2006 that did more than $200 million in damage to city streets, drainage facilities and the damaged homes, businesses and replacement housing the city paid for.
The purpose of the utility is to engineer, construct and maintain and improve new and existing stormwater facilities.
"I don't know where the council will go on this," Cook said, "but I personally think leaving it with the PSB would make a lot more sense than bringing it into the city and making it a tax supported department.
"Look what out track record is for funding it through the city's general fund. It's pretty poor. I don't think we did a good job of it. But it seems to me it's working pretty well at the PSB as a separate entity."
Putting the stormwater utility under the control of City Council and the city manager would create all kinds of new problems, Cook as said, and slow down the progress being made.
"We haven't even finished the master plan yet, and this is the first time we've ever done amaster plan for stormwater," he said. "Even though the intentions of this group may be good, I think it would have been a good idea to see how the utility is operating under the PSB before doing this."
The miscalculation that led to the first 35 percent reduction in rates assessed by the PSB affected only commercial properties, but the rate reduction was across the board.
The PSB came back with a second, additional reduction for schools, churches and nonprofit organizations that left them paying 10 percent of the original rates.
"I have proposed to the PSB that we freeze it at the 90 percent discount and learn to live with that rather than phasing in reduced discounts," Cook said.
PSB, though technically a city department, has been a largely independent agency of the city since its creation in the early 1950s.
Four of its five board members are appointed by the mayor, with the City Council’s approval, and the mayor is the fifth member.
The Concerned Taxpayers is the same organization that mounted a recall petition against Cook in June and claimed to have come within 500 signatures of the 7,967 they needed to force a recall election.
The group faced a deadline in June because of the timing of the 2009 elections and conducted a 19-day petition drive. Normally, they would have had two months to collect the required number of signatures of registered El Paso voters.
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To reach David Crowder, write to dcrowder@epmediagroup.com or call (915) 351-0605