Council members passed a 14 percent utility rate increase and lambasted one of their own for saying the city caused costs overruns through “mismanagement and bad policy.”

“This is not easy. I have a fixed retirement,” Councilwoman Sue Karahalios, a retired teacher, said about the rate surge. She said she was very offended by Councilman Paul Brewer’s comments to the News-Times last week when he vowed to oppose rate hikes.

“I take my job as city councilmember very seriously,” she said.

Her thoughts were echoed by Councilman Jim Campbell and Councilwoman Sheilah Crider.

But their words didn’t hush Brewer, who had some of his facts confused but nevertheless feels he represents many of the community who think such a steep rate increase just shouldn’t happen — regardless of the facts.

“I’ve had numerous phone calls from the voters who say they are concerned about these rate hikes…” he said. “They do not feel these rate hikes are just.”

Only Councilman Danny Paggao joined Brewer in opposition to one increase. Councilman Larry Eaton was absent.

In the end, the council increased water, sewer and storm water rates. They delayed increasing garbage rates until Island County officials make a final decision on a proposal to increase garbage tipping fees from $85 to $104.25 per ton — a surge of about 23 percent. The city has a contract with the county to handle solid waste.

The rate increase will mean an extra $20 each bi-monthly billing period for a typical single-family household, from $143.36 to $163.78. That doesn’t include garbage, which may increase from $36.84 to $39.80 every two months for the typical household.

Why rates rise

City Finance Director Doug Merriman methodically went through the reasons for the rate increase. He said the bulk of the increases are due to a number of expensive construction projects.

In the water fund, the city has to pay off a loan financing the costs of moving three waterlines due to the Department of Transportation Highway 20 projects at Troxell Road and on Fidalgo Island at the Shrimp Shack.

Also, the sewer fund will pay for $3 million in construction projects, mainly state-required upgrades to the treatment lagoons. The storm water fund will pay to design a new, $300,000 outfall line, which should correct the problem with flooding near Burger King.

“We’re put in a situation where public works crews are routinely put in harm’s way in wintertime to clean that out,” City Engineer Eric Johnston said.

Only three residents spoke against the rate growth, though several others in the audience attended in opposition.

Sam Plitt pointed out that national inflation last year was 2.7 percent. He said he couldn’t argue the “nuts and bolts” of the rate increase, but he feels that “something is wrong here.”

“In my neighborhood most of the families are military,” he said, “and quite frankly I don’t think we can quite afford these increases.”

Afterward, he said he was disheartened by the decision and felt it was “politics as usual” in council chambers.

Brewer replies

As he had promised, Brewer was outspoken in his opposition to the proposal, though he did vote in favor of the water rate escalation.

Brewer said the city should have been more aggressive in communicating with the state displeasure over the highway projects and requesting financial relief for having to move waterlines. He claims that projects engineers told him that the huge costs could have been avoided if they knew about the city’s objection.

Brewer blamed the council and mayor for not sending a letter to the state, as he suggested.

“I’m one of them,” he said, speaking of those to blame. “I should have followed through.”

In response, Karahalios said she personally sent out 12 letters to state leaders about the issue.

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen said city officials were in close contact with her over the construction project, and because of that, the Department of Transportation “bent over backwards” to help out the city. But she said the city was ultimately responsible for moving the lines because they are in state right-of-ways.

“We don’t move utilities,” she said.

But much of Brewer’s opposition to the rate increase centered around the Scenic Heights sewer project, which staff didn’t even cite as a reason for the increase.

Brewer is convinced that the project represents a change in policy. After a neighborhood-initiated effort to pay for the sewer themselves failed, the city stepped in to build it. Money from the sewer fund is being used to pay the bond debt service, Merriman said, but the Scenic Heights residents will pay back the fund through latecomers agreements as they connect to the sewer over the years.

In the future when Scenic Heights resident pay for a connection, it will offset future need for increases, benefiting all ratepayers.

Merriman admits that the city spent $200,000 from the fund to support the neighborhood-initiated effort, called a local improvement district, which ultimately failed. He said the city would like to recoup those costs from those residents, but it’s unclear if it will be able to.

Yet Brewer sees conspiracies. He said the Scenic Heights project was the first time that the city paid for such improvements up front. In all other cases, he said developers paid for the projects and then recouped their investment through latercomer’s agreements.

“No matter how you sugar coat it, it’s a change in policy,” Brewer said.

Merriman said he doesn’t believe Scenic Heights was the first such case, but he couldn’t name other examples. He said city staff is researching that issue.

Brewer was also angry that the city was going to foot the bill on a sewer project on Airline Way, but Development Director Steve Powers said that is not the case. The developer will pay for it.

More displeasure

Several councilmembers made it clear they were not pleased with Brewer and his accusations. Karahalios, Crider and Campbell all said they knew the increases were painful, but they felt they were necessary. They said they do their jobs well and were offended if anyone suggested otherwise.

“You don’t know how hard it is to look your neighbors and friends in the face and tell them we’ve got to do it,” Campbell said.

Crider, with obvious sarcasm, said she investigates issues thoroughly.

Karahalios pointed out that Brewer hadn’t brought up his objections during workshops leading up to the meeting.

Besides Brewer, Paggao had a problem with one of the utility increases, pointing out that governor has requested funds for storm sewer projects in the state budget. He suggested that the council delay the storm sewer rate hike to see if they city can get state money for the projects.

But in the end, the storm water rate increase passed 4-2, with Brewer and Paggao voting in opposition. The water rate increase was passed unanimously. The sewer rate increase passed with only Brewer against.