Kowalko, Ramone and Peterson Victorious!
Approximately 100 people showed up at the City Council meeting in Newark to register their displeasure with the proposed disproportional water rate increase for non-resident city water customers. The bottom line of the whole affair is that the city relented in the opening moments of the meeting and made the rate increase a flat 15% across both classes of customer.
Nice work everyone. Anyone want to share their impressions of the meeting?
Well, I wasn’t there, but congratulations to the good guys!
Those wonderfully engaged good folks who showed up made a statement and it was heard.
I was there and had the same point of view as one gentleman. Their PowerPoint presentation consisted of comparing the rates to other cites in the state and their rate structure and ours(Newark). Even comparing to other states on the east coast. Like I really care what water rate New Yorkers pay. I noticed in the presentation there was no information pertaining to where the increased funds were going. What projects they hoped to get done with the increase, how their own costs have increased…
It seemed like their main reasoning was that everyone else does it, so should we.
I was happy they evened out the rate increase for now. I would have even settled for a 20%-20%.
At any rate, I would like to thank John Kowalko for organizing this, and for Karen Peterson, Michael Ramone and everyone else that came out.
Where were you LG? I thought you loved coming out to stick it to the man?
I had a non-profit board meeting that was previously scheduled. I was there in spirit. In fact, I called John Kowalko and offered to bail him out of jail, if necessary. 🙂
I wasn’t able to attend even though I had planned to. I thought about this all evening. I am glad about the result. Honestly I figured we’d hadn’t a chance. What was our recourse?? But I forget Kowalko was on the case… Windy Hills ‘hood… top of the food chain…
Joking aside, thanks to everyone involved. My wife & I are the beneficiaries of this….
I did not attend either. Since I live in Wilmington I suppose that is no big deal.
If I am around (I may be out of town on family business) when Mr. Coons comes to Woodlawn Library I will stand up and ask what city residents get for paying county taxes (We used to get ambulance service (St. Francis does it now) and parks maintenance (the state does it now).
My taxes show I pay (appx. per annum) (city) $1150.00 and $1600.00 to the county! I will fight a tax hike by encouraging Wilmington City Council to raise water rates to the county and take away the county’s ‘re-billing’ scam in order to reduce our taxes in proportion to any county tax increase.
I encourage any city resident attending the Library meeting to inquire from the Silverplate spooned Exec. just what services ‘we’ get for our taxes.
The meeting was good, however the outcome was less to do with the 100 folks in the room than the work that Kowalko and others had done in the prior 7 days. They had a full-court-press on the city council, and this led the council to admit defeat in their opening comments.
I would like to say that the city finance director was very unimpressive, and while the WRA (the agency which recommended the 30% hike last October) guy was nice, he wasted a LOT of time for a LOT of people.
What concerns me is that people at the meeting and readers wrongly concluded that the increase will be 15%. That is merely the current step. By backing down on the 30% increase to out-of-towners, the city opened up an annual deficit of about $175,000. This will need to be filled, most likely by a further increase of 5-7% (for both townies and out-of-townies).
I would feel better if I felt that the city’s finances were in the hands of a sharper fellow.
The good news is that the city staff and state legislators (and perhaps some civic leaders) are committed to sitting down at a table to resolve all of these issues. Go open government!
I don’t necessarily mind the increase per se. I thought maybe a nice compromise was to 20-20 Roy suggested above. I understand the environment we’re in. Just keep it fair. That is all.
To Susan Collins:
You say you have a $1,600 county tax bill. I hardly think that can be true. The county bill you receive includes a huge school tax (probably about 75% of the total bill). City residents pay a token county tax to primarly cover paramedic service and a couple little things. Check your property on the NCC land use/parcel view screen and you can see the tax breakdown.
Susan…A tiny bit bit of research shows that you pay $160.79 in county tax, $1,455.30 in school tax and $1,150 in city tax. Public records are a great resource.