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Jamestown\u00a0 (CSi)\u00a0 The Jamestown City Council met in Special Session Tuesday morning at city, discuss the Storm Water Utility, to establish the Stormwater Utility Fund and approve the Stormwater Utility Fee.\u00a0\u00a0 All members were present.<\/p>\n
At the July 2 City Council meeting the City Council passed the Second Reading of an Ordinance pertaining to Stormwater.<\/p>\n
The Special Meeting was set to further discuss the issue, pending additional information concerning 35 properties in dollars.<\/p>\n
Previous amounts indicated that Residential Properties <\/strong>\u2013 Pay a Flat fee of $3.00 per month; and All Other Properties Except Residential <\/strong>\u2013 As set forth in Table 1 of the Resolution. (The billing starts in the September billing cycling period.)<\/p>\n Mayor Heinrich has previously said that impacts of fees on larger businesses, churches, schools and agricultural land are not known at this time.<\/p>\n At Tuesday\u2019s meeting, members from the audience were invited to speak.<\/p>\n Clarice Liechty talked about Jamestown Regional Airport and the Jamestown Public School District had concerns about their annual fees.\u00a0 She suggests a flat fee for all properties.<\/p>\n She added that two of her properties have detention or retention ponds, asking for a possible reduction in storm water fees.<\/p>\n Jim Schumacher said he has business property in Jamestown and farm land near town.<\/p>\n He said storm water on his farmland goes into a ditch, and not into the storm water sewer.<\/p>\n Thelma Trecker added that she owns land near Fort Seward and questioned how the fee structure was arrived at, specifically concerning her land.<\/p>\n Daniel Bieber from Santa Spring, California who owns Jamestown property, with no business on it.<\/p>\n His fee is $111.\u00a0 He said his property of 42 acres, does not have storm water runoff, and he does not use any city services.<\/p>\n Neil Guthmiller, who owns MGM Trailer Court said he uses no water or sewer service, adding that the city floods the trailer court with an easement through it.<\/p>\n A representative from AE2S made a presentation concerning the rate structure options, and the previous feasibility study.<\/p>\n He outlined recouping costs from user fees, and factors of how large each property is and how it is developed.<\/p>\n He said the residential flat fee of $3 per month was determined by dividing all residential properties about 4,700 into the annual costs of $500,000.<\/p>\n He said individual property fee adjustments are possible, including ag-land and vacant properties and airport land, along with adjustments on a case by case basis.<\/p>\n He outlined the impacts of reductions or exemptions on money coming into the fund, and recouping the lost income. He discussed the impacts of reductions or exemptions on money coming into the fund, and recouping the lost income.<\/p>\n Mayor Heinrich said a fair and equitable solution is needed and favors a 50 percent reduction in the current rate structure for government and educational parcels, and possible adjustments in ag-land and vacant property parcels fees.\u00a0 Also not to charge a storm water utility \u00a0fees for businesses such as Cavendish Farms that do not have \u00a0storm sewer access.<\/p>\n Council Member Phillips said a large fee structure for businesses is impacting their ability to produce, adding the $3 fee per month for residences is fair.<\/p>\n Council Member Brubakken suggested a $200 fee cap, on all parcels in the city, he said will raise the need $500,000 annually.<\/p>\n Mayor Heinrich said Tuesday\u2019s meeting was the first time the Council has seen meaningful numbers of the fees and rates, and implementation.\u00a0 He said a $200 cap would not raise enough money.<\/p>\n Phillips said it\u2019s more important to reach a fair decision, rather than making a decision at Tuesday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n Mayor Heinrich suggested a 50-percent reduction in government and educational fees, and a $3 fee per agriculture parcel, and a $200 maximum per parcel. It was pointed out that a 50-percent reduction in government and educational fees is not needed if a $200 cap was implemented.<\/p>\n Council Member Buchanan said to let the process take its course, and let the experts crunch the numbers.\u00a0 Heinrich said AE2S needs guidance in what the city wants.<\/p>\n City Attorney Leo Ryan said the Resolution needs to contain a formula, which can be adopted independently within the Ordinance.<\/p>\n The billing data base will need to be adjusted, under recommendations.<\/p>\n The matter will go forward to the August City Council Public Works Committee concerning adjustments, and recommendations.<\/p>\n Tuesday’s meeting was shown live on CSi 67.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jamestown\u00a0 (CSi)\u00a0 The Jamestown City Council met in Special Session Tuesday morning at city, discuss the Storm Water Utility, to establish the Stormwater Utility Fund and approve the Stormwater Utility Fee.\u00a0\u00a0 All members were present. At the July 2 City Council meeting the City Council passed the Second Reading of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":66331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-jamestown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=175759"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175880,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175759\/revisions\/175880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/66331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=175759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=175759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=175759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}