Minutes - Council - 10/10/2000 - Laserfiche WebLink

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With this example he caught some of the Councilmembers attention, some of them even saying they would like to see the actual numbers of his example. So City Engineer Olson tells the Council and the paper "According to Olson, Ve-Ve Inc., is 65,000 square feet for the building and driveway surface and is charged 29 times more than an average home of 2,500 square feet. They have more than 26 times more impervious area, he said." Mr. Vevea commented how convenient it was that Mr. Olson corrects only one-half of his example. He indicated that Ve-Vc, Inc. has 65,000 square feet of building and driveway surface. Mr. Vevea was only thinking of building and blacktop at 25,000 square feet, not knowing that the City counts driveways, even if they arc not blacktopped, as impervious ground. So Mr. Vevea measured everything and only came up with 57,000 square feet. Then he realized that Mr. Olson did not correct the amount of square footage a home owner is paying on. Mr. Olson stated 2,500 square feet when it is actually 10,890 square feet. Where did he get the 10,890 square feet. Paragraph #4 in the paper reads "While homeowners will be paying $6.30 every three months, based on one-quarter acre of impervious ground for driveways and paths, business owners will be paying more for the runoff they produce." So he looked up in the dictionary the word "acre", and it said an acre is equal to 43,560 square feet. Then he deviated that by four (because the homeowner pays $6.30 based on 'A of an acre). Mr. Vevea stated this time he would give the Council the facts instead of an example to the best of his knowledge. 1) A homeowner rate of $6.30 for a 3 month period is based on ¼ acre of impervious ground or 10,890 square feet. 2) Ve-Ve, Inc. has 57,000 square feet of impervious ground, not 65,000 as City Engineer Olson indicates. 3) Buildings and blacktop are impervious ground, dirt or gravel driveways are not impervious ground. The word impervious is defined in the dictionary as land incapable of being penetrated by a substance such as water. 4) So if you do the basic math and divide Ve-Ve, Inc.'s. 57,000 square feet by a homeowners 10,890 square feet it shows that they have 5.2 times the impervious area. 5) $6.30 (what a homeowner pays on '/4 acre) x 5.2 times (how much more area Ve-Ve, Inc. has) = $32.76. So if they have 5.2 times the area, why do they pay $185.98, which is 29 ½ times as much. Based on the City's formula, they are paying $35.75 on the quarter acre that the homeowner is paying $6.30 for. So if the situation is handled in a fair way, all the businesses go on the formula of a $6.30 charge per 1/4 acre, the same amount a homeowner is paying and the amount that the Council has set up. The expected revenue of $350,000 would then not be that large. So the Council can either raise the amount per square feet they are requesting from the homeowner and bring the businesses amount down to the same and equal the amount per square foot to achieve the $350,000 revenue the City states they need; or settle with the lesser amount they would get if the businesses paid the amount the Council is now requesting the homeowners to pay per square foot. He thanked the Council for their time and consideration on this matter. He stated that he hopes the Councilmembers can search their souls and come upon a morally fair solution to this matter. City Engineer Olson replied that when an aerial map is used it is difficult to get an accurate measurement and that is why businesses are allowed to come in and view all of the figures. Mr. Vevea stated that everyone can continue to argue the issue, but all the homes are grouped into one category and yet all the businesses are being looked at individually. City Council/October 10, 2000 Page 6 of 17