Article “Owners of larger city properties concerned about stormwater fee proposal” appeared in the appeared in the Intelligencer Journal / New Era last week.
It reports:
“The ordinance would formally establish a plan for the city to prevent as much as 1 billion gallons of stormwater mixed with raw sewage from overflowing the city’s wastewater treatment plant during heavy rains.
“The city is facing daily fines of $37,500 from the federal Environmental Protection Agency if it fails to address the problem.
“‘Doing nothing is not an option. It is a federal mandate,” said city Public Works Director Charlotte Katzenmoyer.’”
About three years ago Robert Field, the publisher of NewsLanc, with half a century experience in successful real estate development throughout three states and in Eastern Europe, was invited by Mayor Rick Gray to a private meeting to encourage favorable publicity about the City’s plan for the remediating the overflow of sewage into the Conestoga River. The flooding is caused during heavy storm conditions by the City’s antiquated combined sanitary and storm water sewer lines.
Field expressed concern that roof top gardens and like proposed remedies would not make sufficient difference and requested an opportunity to review the cities sewer plans. He thought there might be possibility of redirecting some of the storm water to the Conestoga via installation of a limited amount of new storm sewer. (The mayor had discussed building huge storage tanks.)
Field’s request was refused by City Planner Randy Patterson and Mayor Gray declined to intervene.
Field was perplexed since up to that time his relationship with Gray had been cordial and he had been invited in to discuss the matter. He reached out to the manager of a nearby township to obtain some information but then let the matter lapse.
Two years later the city planner and the mayor would again refuse to allow Field to meet with Patterson to discuss possibilities for the renewal of Lancaster Square East.
Field believes that Gray and Patterson have permanently marred the future of the City through the unquestioning support of the development of the convention center, long burying their heads in the ground over the storm sewer problem, and failure to consider how the former Brunswick Hotel and annex and the long dormant former Bulova building could be razed and Lancaster Square East redeveloped.
He considers the mayor to be a ‘smart fool’, unreceptive to information that conflict with misguided opinions, and questions Patterson’s basic competence.
Because of his concerns, Field contributed $10,000 to Charlie Smithgall’s unsuccessful recent campaign for mayor, the same amount that he had contributed towards Gray’s campaign when he was first elected mayor. At that time, Gray had promised to undertake a critical evaluation of the proposed convention center project. He did not do so.
Thanks for the story.
As a city landlord, I am constantly in a position of having to raise rents due to cost push from the local government. I like Rick Gray and he has done a good job in many areas. He is particularly adept at raising money where it exists rather than from where the costs occur. Examples of this include:
Charging an apartment with one resident the same trash rate as a house with 14 people.
Requiring housing inspection of only rental properties rather than all properties.
Writing fines for improper recycling.
Writing fines for parking on public streets clogged with snow during street cleaning periods.
Raising water and sewer rates as a profit center (on both the city and townships).
The run-off fee is a nice swipe at those who generate the most run-off, but the proposed solutions strike me as a “star wars” approach or possibly just another money grab. I’d like to see the fees be restricted solely to solving run-off problems.