The fact is that nobody can seem to get much information on how it was done. I'm not sure that anyone (other than parking-lot owners) would oppose the idea of collecting something from people who cause substantial runoff costs but pay absolutely nothing for the cost they let others pay. As David says, there may be a difference between the stormwater fees charged for duplex properties and single properties. And, that distinction may explain the difference in David Brauer and Nick Coleman's statements on the issue. However, neither seems to have picked up on the fact that whether a property has a duplex sitting on it or a single-family home sitting on it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the amount of stormwater runoff on the property. A "duplex" and a "single-family home" may be exacly the same size -- as is evident from the number of single-family units that have been converted into duplexes. The fact that there are two living units may add to the sanitary sewer but does NOT affect the runoff of rain. If so, why is there a difference in the charge for stormwater between the two types of property?
Off the list, I had a conversation with David about the "model" that was used by the city to calculate the stormwater fees. As I recall, David said that the city's model may not allowed for changing the assumption that people getting billed $0 for water now would now still be charged something for stormwater. And my response was that if the city's "model" didn't allow for doing that, then it was a very defective model. I'm beginning to suspect that it's even worse than David said. There may be NO "model" available to the city to use to calculate the stormwater fees. Rather, they just guessed and put something in place with the intention of refining the charges based on the information of several months (or years) of use. I suspect that whoever's guess it was as to what charges should be imposed and how different properties were to be differentiated was wildly off.
And, if my guess is right, the downside is that if the error of someone's guess in stormwater rate structure may kill the whole idea -- and the basic idea was good it's just that the execution may have been wildly off. I'd suggest that if the city doesn't have any real model that they had better cut all of the rates fast or they aren't ever going to have stormwater charges in place long enough to be able to gather enough information to make the charges really match each property.
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