Joshua city council meeting August 2009: You Win Some You Lose Some

Unfortunately we lost more than we won last night.

A win for the residents around 103 Veatch St. I was going to vote against the zoning change from residential to commercial and I believe most of the council would have as well, but the applicant, Johnson County Special Utility District, withdrew the request after having entering into a contract with their high-bidder, a residential buyer.

A loss for small government and low taxes (and fees). To my surprise a majority of the council voted to move our trash collection billing from IESI, our trash collection provider, to the city as a function of our local government. You may be told it's to save you money, but guess again. Our trash collection services will remain the same with two pickups per week and one recycling pickup per week. Since our grant expired on our recycling our monthly rate was going to go up to $15.86 per month. We had an option from IESI to reduce that rate to $14.50 per month if the city started doing the billing instead of them. Councilman Isom, Smallwood, Tallent, Neely and Mayor Breitenstein all voted to save you $1.36 per month. Or did they? The cost to the city to do the billing will be thousands of dollars and more work for our current staff, but that's not the worst of it. With the city now sending you a bill every quarter there's another revenue option on the table - Drainage Fee. Remember that term because you'll see it on a council agenda at some point in the future and you better be ready to voice your opinion. Here's what it could look like for you if it comes up:

Our city attorney stated last night that other municipalities that have instituted drainage fees charge between $3 and $8 per month. If Joshua adopts a fee in that range then there goes your $1.36.

Now granted, we have drainage issues in the city. Even if bond prop 3 passes this November it will take millions to fix everything that the engineers think need to be done. The severity and necessity are debatable in my non-professional opinion, but let's look at the headway a drainage fee might make. At $3 per month with approximately 2000 billed households that's $72,000 per year revenue to the city. $8 per month would generate $192,000 per year. That would probably be more than enough to maintain our drainage systems once corrected, but it's a drop in the flood on getting the initial work done.

Let me put this in perspective for you another way. Increasing our property tax rate one cent raises about $26,000 per year for the city so a $3 drainage fee is equal to about a 3 cent property tax increase. We the council just proposed a 2 cent decrease in the property tax rate so, like your $1.36 trash savings, that would be gone too.

This is just one more way to nickel and dime more money out of us and even Councilman Neely who voted against the bond election altogether because of his Arlington Tea Party ties voted this one in last night. I guess adding a billing system for a service provided by a private sector business that could lead to higher taxes renamed as a fee is different from just being up front and raising property taxes. Got to love politics.