City Council Meeting 1-20-2009 Rates to stay high!

At our city council meeting last Tuesday we were enlightened with a visit from the Weber Sewer District about the proposed rate hike. The representative chosen to come before the gauntlet of questions and concerns did his best to put us at ease. The District's reasoning for a new plant seems to make sense but there could be a flaw that will insure your rates go up and stay up forever.

As the financial director of the Central Weber Sewer District spoke with regards to the methodology of the need of a new plant; he explained that the current plant, which has lasted 50 years, is no longer capable in meeting the EPA requirements for the water it treats and puts back into the Weber River. Over the years they have expanded and improved the plant with current technology to keep it up to standards; however they have reached the end. Though it is still useable and new plant will need to be built to accommodate more water and meet the EPA standards. This will cost a hefty sum totaling $140 Million. To pay for this bond, the cost will fall on the individual cities that use the Weber Sewer District, which is everyone. They [the city] in turn will collect the money from the individual citizen or water user. Though it seems the District has done its homework contracting multiple engineering firms to review and re-review the material in a two year study, it is interesting to note that this new plant has a life expectance of only 25 years. On that same note, the bond will take 25 years to be paid off. If you have already done the math in your head, you will see what I am seeing. As soon as we pay for it, it will be time for a new one. if we are going to raise our rates for a new plant, seems like we should build one that will last 50 years like our current one, instead of 25 years.

There were plenty more goodies from Tuesday's city council meeting; especially since it was over two hours long (a six month record). A heated discussion, which I participated in, came forward about capital drained Alliance Credit Union putting a mobile branch (aka trailer) in South Ogden to build a customer base. In addition the skate park came up a number of times. The mayor promised to bring it up in their next planning session and start working on a new skate park. We will see how that goes.