01-14-19 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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REGULAR MEETING January 14, 2019 actually going to go to? If I'm going to give you two dollars ($2) extra, a month, where does that go? How does that help me? Mr. Horvath replied, We've indicated to Council that this is going to be used for capital and will meet the storm water infrastructure needs. An example in this year's budget is everything from downspout disconnect which is keeping that clean water out of the system from overburdening a largely combined system which causes sewer backups in people's basements. It is things like separating sewers on Western Avenue so there is a separate sanitary and storm sewer instead of a combined line which, again, alleviates basement backup issues. It also does things like solves drainage issues in areas like Olivia Circle or Linden Wood or Outlook Court where there are significant drainage issues where when it rains we are flooding people's homes. Those are some examples,but it is for storm water infrastructure funding. It could be to build a new retention basin, it could be to build some green infrastructure so that instead of putting it into storm infrastructure we can try to have rain water taken care of at the source. The intended purpose is to help fund storm water infrastructure since we don't have any funding source for that. Councilmember Regina Williams-Preston followed up, Was it in 2016 or 2017 that we had that big issue with flooding? I know it has been many times but most specifically, around the corner from my house,on Frederickson and in that area of District Two (2),we had catastrophic flooding, water backing up into basements and some homes had to be demolished. People were displaced. The cost of moving and losing goods were staggering. So,it sounds like what you are talking about is prevention. This is investing twenty-four dollars ($24) a year per residential properties. Could it be an investment in prevention of this kind of catastrophic flooding down the road? I don't want to lose my home or anything inside my home, even if I'm renting. Is this a small investment on the front end to provide prevention? I remember when this happened, we were coming back and asking how we can help people with the hundreds of thousands of dollars that they were going to need in order to be made whole again. Is that what we are getting at? Mr. Horvath replied, Absolutely, it is exactly for that. It is to help prevent having flooding and backup problems in people's homes. It is to handle storm water appropriately. Although this will generate just over $1 million a year, it is not enough for the whole City. But this gets it moving forward in the right direction in my eyes and it gets us the ability to start and get moving on some of the highest priority areas where we know we've got significant issues every time it rains. Councilmember Regina Williams-Preston then asked, Finally, with this, we've also been talking about the lifeline rates or the income-based rates, can you say something about the advocacy you would be looking for from us as a Council and, or, the Community in making changes downstate so that we can implement that? While we are imposing some additional tax, if you will, we are also looking very seriously at ways to lift burden of utility. Mr. Horvath replied,Yeah, thank you for that. As we've discussed,this is new to Indiana and they haven't allowed differential rates in the past. Other states have but part of the legislation indicates that the IURC will need to look at how you set those differential rates and they will need to ultimately approve them. Because nobody has gone through that process,we don't know what that process looks like yet. We'll have conversations with them ahead of time,but it will likely be very helpful for them to know that our community is supportive of lifeline rates and that our Council is supportive of lifeline rates. That is something we need to embrace as a community. I think that is a very important part of it especially for the IURC as they are looking at this as a new endeavor for them and an uncharted area. Councilmember Regina Williams-Preston stated, So an action step, I think Councilmember McBride spoke about the need for more conversation. Councilmember Sharon L. McBride stated, I want to say thank you for immediately taking the time to defer the date until June instead of January 1 and talking to a lot of the constituents without being educated, there are a lot of concerns, of course, of having the financial burden put on the residents. Talking with some of them and asking about a plan and being part of the discussion and figuring out who and how it impacts everyone, it did help a bit talking about how it doesn't just affect one(1)area. Councilmember Broden talked about it, it impacts taxpayers as a whole. When EMS or River Rescue comes out or the Public Safety Officers come out,that is all tax payer dollars, City or County wide. I appreciate having further conversation but still definitely want to make 14