06/18/2007: "Voters May Decide On Stormwater Fee"

The first referendum filed under the new Charter form of county government has been certified. 1,655 voters in San Juan County signed a petition asking the County Council to repeal an ordinance that imposes a stormwater “service charge” on developed property in the county.

San Juan County is mandated by the State to develop a storm water plan, -that is not optional. However it became apparent to those collecting signatures for this referendum, that the level of understanding as to the problems to be addressed, and the proposed means for mitigation by the Storm Water Ordinance, was minimal.

Given the level of desire to re-visit this issue (15% of the registered voters signed the petition), the County Council can decide to repeal the ordinance, which would make the vote unnecessary, or they can do nothing and wait to receive the results of the November election when the voters in the county will decide if the service charge -which some are calling a tax- will continue to show up on their property tax bill.

The decision to collect the money by use of the property tax bill was done without the approval of county taxpayers. After receiving a recommendation from a committee appointed by the Council to make a recommendation, the County Council passed an ordinance last year that required the tax assessor to include the charge on the property tax bills sent out to all developed property in San Juan County. According to the petition organizers, putting the issue back before the public was the purpose of the referendum.

When property owners got their new bills, questions were asked as to the nature of this charge. What the heck is this for? Many were none to happy about it, and it was not long before some were calling for action.

The chorus grew louder when it was pointed out that the new charge would be collected on all developed property (a driveway counts), even though the County would continue to require a home owner to pay for the design, installation, and maintenance of their own stormwater system.

A further concern was the proposed long term development of this utility, in conjunction with the Assessors office, for modifying the fee to correspond to the square footage of impervious structures on a property, regardless of mitigation features the home owner had paid for and installed that resulted in minimal run-off for that parcel.

Now that the referendum has been certified, the Council can decide to repeal the ordinance, and then try to craft a new one that addresses some of the problems with the current ordinance that generated the referendum, while leaving the basic County funding structure intact. Or, alternatively they can recognize the extent to which the storm water problem in the San Juan’s is predominantly a “point source” issue, and needs to be addressed accordingly. And of course, they can await the results of the election, and then take action

Friday Harbor has created a funding mechanism for their own utility. The same approach could be used for other identified problem areas; and individual home homeowners throughout the county are already required to address their own run-off issues.

While all this is going on, Gordon and Lori Petersen are homeowners who want a refund of the “service charge” fee they were forced to pay, arguing that they are not receiving any service for the fee. They appealed to Public Works, were turned down, and now have an appeal coming up this month in front of the Council.