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September 11, 2012

Stormwater fee, program topic of info meeting

By Mary Spicer Meadville Tribune

MEADVILLE — A new fee levied on all properties in the City of Meadville isn the topic of a public information meeting Wednesday.

The stormwater management session, which will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the William J. Douglass Jr. Corporate Conference Center, 764 Bessemer St., will feature an in-depth report on the proposed stormwater management program, including the user fee that has been proposed to support the city’s aging stormwater management system. The location of the session, which is open to the public, is accessible to handicapped citizens.

A draft version of a proposed stormwater management ordinance will be discussed Wednesday; once the public meeting portion of the process is complete, Meadville City Council is expected to consider and possibly take action on the first and second reading of a final version of the ordinance during council’s monthly meeting on Sept. 19 at 6 p.m. in the conference room at Meadville  Central Fire Station. The conference room is entered from the Walnut Street side of the building; as with all of council’s monthly study sessions and meetings, the public is invited to attend.

A third and final reading of the stormwater ordinance is scheduled for council’s regularly-scheduled study session on Oct. 3; in accordance with the required 21-day waiting period, the ordinance would be effective by the end of October. Plans call for establishing a program year beginning Nov. 1 and extending through Dec. 31, 2013. In future years, this would allow the stormwater program year to coincide with the calendar year, which is also the city’s fiscal year.

During council’s recent study session, it was made clear that some key fiscal aspects of the proposed plan are still open for discussion. For example, City Manager Joe Chriest stressed that no decisions have been made about the possibility of issuing credits to businesses privately implementing best stormwater management practices on their properties. Cautioning council that the city needs to take a serious look at the cost of administering an ongoing credit program, “We won’t have time to put together a credit policy that is meaningful before the public meeting,” Chriest said.

Council member LeRoy Stearns stressed repeatedly that he wants to see something included in the final ordinance that will give council the ability to rule on adjusting the annual fee for individual and business hardship cases.



Mary Spicer can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at mspicer@meadvilletribune.com.

 

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