If the City Council declines to take over the utility, the petition organizers will have to go through the process again to force an election on the issue.
In an NPT story Oct. 30, when the organizers filed the petition, businessman Lee Urias said a second round of signature gathering would be easier than the first: “We have the sites set up and can move a lot faster now on a second petition to put it on the ballot so voters can have a say.” [link]
Other organizers present Oct. 30 to hand in the petition were Gerald Miller and Jerry Thiedt.
With authorization from City Council, the El Paso Water Utilities’ Public Service Board started operating the stormwater utility March 1 and assessing fees to water customers that sparked immediate opposition.
The PSB responded by reducing fees twice, the first time because of an error in billing calculations that would have brought in $6 million more than was budgeted and hit owners of large parking lots particularly hard.
City Council formed the stormwater utility in the aftermath of the severe flooding in August 2006 that did more than $200 million in damage to city streets, drainage facilities and the damaged homes, businesses and replacement housing the city paid for.
The purpose of the utility is to engineer, construct and maintain and improve new and existing stormwater facilities.
Ray
November 15, 2008
Well it looks like Quintana and company need to start polling their friends for the jobs if they take over. We all know that the leaders will be an inside job.
PLEASE READ
November 18, 2008
This issue affects everyone in El Paso!! The media never reports the whole story. There was never proper planning done to create a stormwater utility, there still is no master plan. Fees are being collected from El Pasoens only to hire high price public information officers and advertising to calm the backlash from the community. The city has had in there budget 6 million dollars for stormwater projects when the new utility was created and a fee structure set by PSB, the city kept the 6 million they collected from us. Joyce Wilson is taking credit for no tax increase this year. But, she forgot to tell you she kept the six million in the city budget and let the PSB come a with a ridicules fees for everyone in El Paso. Right there, every one is paying twice. The plan from Joyce Wilson and the PSB was to let the business handle 80% of the burden. They are not smart enough to realize that most of the small business are not able to handle the extra burden without raising there prices to the consumer. The consumer is YOU! So, now you are paying a third time. So, if you want a stormwater utility, I can guarantee you don’t want this stormwater utility.