11/04/2008: "Public Meetings on Stormwater Utility"

The County Council is ready to take the draft Stormwater Ordinance proposal on a "road show" to receive public input. Sort of. Not the draft really, but an outline.

“The subcommittee has spent nearly nine months studying and debating the Utility’s mission and different means of funding it,” said Subcommittee chair Rich Peterson, “And I think we have come up with something that addresses the County’s needs as well as the citizens’ concerns that were expressed in the referendum.”

Now it will be up to public to see if they agree with the work product of the committee. Or at least an outline of it. The full draft is not quite ready for prime time, since it has yet to be reviewed by County Prosecutor Randy Gaylord, but the Council may release all, or parts of the draft, if Councilman Gene Knapp's advice to the Council is followed. Knapp said Gaylord is unlikely to recommend any substantive changes, so why not just release it as it is: a draft document.

Based on reports given to the Council by the subcommittee, it is expected the outline will contain the following:

1. Share Equally: All non-exempt parcels in the county would be charged a flat fee totaling approximately $64 per year.

2. Allocate Island by Island: Fees charged to parcels on each island would pay the full cost of infrastructure on that island. There would be no capital charge to residents of islands where no construction takes place.
The first year’s fees on this basis would range from approximately $24 on islands where there is no construction to $104 on Orcas.

3. The “50%-25%-25%” fee: Half of each project’s construction cost would be divided evenly among parcels countywide. Each island would pay the other half of the cost of the projects built on that island, with parcels inside the Urban Growth Boundaries paying a higher percentage of the cost of facilities located within the UGA itself.

The first year’s fees would range from approximately $44 on islands with no construction to $228 in Lopez Village.

The fee structure includes a flat-rate fee to cover the cost of the utility’s administration, drainage basin studies and a program to assist landowners reduce run-off and comply with stormwater regulation requirements.

A second portion of the fee will cover the capital cost of constructing infrastructure to handle stormwater; but at this time that has yet to be done.

Dates for the "road show" have yet to be set