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REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 13, 2003 <br />that it is not. He stated that if you look at the capital improvement plan where the City will spend <br />money for a specific project and fund some of those projects with debt and plan to buy and pay for <br />future improvements that is what the rates are set on. The state allows the City to do so but that is <br />not being done even though the state allows the City to fund its deprecation expense if it so chooses. <br />Council Attorney Kathleen Cekanski-Farrand indicated that the December 20, 2002 Cost of Service <br />Study does not contain Exhibit F and asked Mr. Skomp if the Council has a complete document. <br />Mr. Skomp advised that during revisions a lot of schedules were dropped out and he does not have <br />an Exhibit F either. <br />At this time, Councilmember Pfeifer made a motion to affirm that the Council is acting on the most <br />recent substitute version of this bill. Councilmember Coleman seconded the motion which carried <br />by a voice vote of nine (9) ayes. <br />Councilmember King advised that there is a time limit on public comment. Each speaker is allowed <br />five (5) minutes. Those individuals in favor of the bill will speak first. The total amount of time <br />taken by those individuals will be the limit for the total amount of time available for those who are <br />speaking against the bill unless those speaking in favor consume less than thirty (30) minutes in <br />which case the total amount of time for those speaking against the bill will be thirty (30) minutes. <br />Councilmember Aranowski volunteered to be the time keeper for this portion of the meeting. <br />This being the time heretofore set for the Public Hearing on the above bill, proponents and <br />opponents were given an opportunity to be heard. <br />The following individuals spoke in favor of this bill: <br />Mr. Don Brubaker, 1706 Anderson, South Bend, Indiana, stated that he was glad to hear about the <br />decision to raise the sewer rates because environmentally speaking it is not a good situation in South <br />Bend. On rainy days there are spikes of E-coli and other pollutants. Mr. Brubaker indicated that <br />he hopes this increase is enough to deal with the CSO problem. He estimated that the City has <br />approximately thirty-nine (39) CSO's registered with IDEM. He noted that it is his hope that the <br />high end users would take a more positive and more generous approach to the community. <br />Mr. Tom Brown,1213 Humbolt, South Bend, Indiana, advised that he thinks the City and Common <br />Council are headed in the right direction. As an environmentalist he knows that human behavior <br />can be changed if human beings have some way of judging the impact of their behavior on other <br />people and the environment. One of the ways is through water rates. By going to a cost of service <br />way of billing, those who use the most water will feel the same pain as the rest of the users. He <br />noted that for the past fifteen (15) years the commercial and industrial users have been getting a <br />substantial subsidy from the residential rate payers in the City. He stated that he believes the City <br />is headed in the right direction. He noted that he is concerned with the CSO issues which it looks <br />like will be put off until 2005. Mr. Brown indicated that he has not heard about the impact of this <br />rate increase on fixed incomes and asked what that impact might be. <br />There was no one else present wishing to speak in favor of this bill. <br />Councilmember Aranowski advised that individuals who spoke in favor of this bill consumed seven <br />