City of Shoreline press release
This is in response to (information in ) Evan Smith's March 27, 2014, article titled "State Sen. Chase's bill to prevent City of Shoreline from assuming Ronald Wastewater District without a vote passes Senate but dies in House". The article failed to provide a complete picture about the proposed bill, why the City chose to oppose it, and about the City's assumption of Ronald Wastewater in 2017.
Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill (ESSB) 6008 did not just impact Shoreline, but all cities in Washington state. It would have limited the ability of cities across the state from unifying utilities, which is currently allowed by State law, under their control and providing more efficient water and sewer services for their residents. The bill was also written very specifically to negatively affect the City's agreement to assume the Ronald Wastewater District in 2017.
Unification of utilities in Shoreline under City control has been a community goal for more than 15 years. In 2002, the City and Ronald Wastewater District entered into a joint agreement for the City to assume the District in 2017 as both parties saw the benefit of unifying the wastewater utility with City operations. Community members have affirmed the intent of that agreement through the recent election of two Ronald Wastewater District Commissioners that ran on platforms supporting the City’s assumption of the District. Additionally, duly elected Shoreline City Councils and Ronald Boards of Commissioners, past and present, have supported the assumption of the District by the City.
Some citizens have raised concerns that the City will automatically impose a substantial utility tax once the utility is unified with the City, simply because the City has the authority. However, the City has provided public utility service for many years, operating and setting rates for two utilities –solid waste and stormwater. Current utility tax rates for both utilities is 6% and has remained at 6% since first imposed on solid waste in 2000 and stormwater in 2005. The City Council has chosen not to increase utility taxes. Imposing a significant stormwater utility tax increase is not in the best interest of Shoreline citizens, just as imposing higher utility taxes on the wastewater utility will not be in our citizens’ best interest either.
Most importantly, unification of the wastewater utility into City operations will provide the Shoreline citizens and ratepayers with numerous benefits. By sharing facilities and equipment, reducing operational costs, such as having one legal department, and eliminating the cost of a second set of elected officials the ratepayers and taxpayers will achieve efficiency savings. Unification will also allow for better communication and customer service, greater transparency, coordinated capital improvement projects, and more robust emergency response. The Shoreline City Council and a majority of the current Ronald Board of Commissioners believe unification is in the community’s best interest, while ESSB 6008 was not.
The reason the City of Shoreline has not raised utility taxes above 6% is obvious. They haven't yet assumed Ronald. If they dared raise them, that would let the cat out of the bag.
ReplyDeleteWhere the citizens are a third party, there is no freedom.
ReplyDeleteThe City waited 3 weeks to respond to the article cited above. So why now? Next Monday, April 21, 7:00pm, the Shoreline City Council will review its financial analysis, which they call a unification and efficiency study. They will claim the analysis justifies the City's taking over the assets and operation of your sanitary sewer utility from your current provider, the Ronald Wastewater District, who has been doing the job for 63 years. The Council is scheduled to adopt those findings on May 19, and begin the formal assumption process with the state of Washington's Boundary Review Board.
ReplyDeleteSince the City does not bother in this article to challenge Senator Maralyn Chase's claim that a jurisdictional decision such as this rightfully belongs to the voters, it is a safe bet they won't bring up the issue of a public vote in Monday's meeting either. Rather, they use this article to argue for assumption, which was not the point of Chase's bill at all, or of the article this article claims to be a response to.
Institutional choices for service provision are complex. For each service, there are many decisions to be made in choosing the best service delivery option for a particular community. Should the service be provided by the private, non-profit, or public sector? If by public sector, should it be provided at the federal, state, or local level? If at the local level, should the choice be made by local government officials, private developers, or metropolitan residents? Once the decision has been made to provide the service through local government, and the decision maker has been decided, then and only then can a proper choice be made between special purpose government (e.g., Ronald Wastewater District) and general purpose government (e.g. City of Shoreline).
Counties, cities and special purpose districts are all biased in favor of their own self-preservation. They cannot be expected to make the institutional choices outlined above. Only the state legislature and the citizens of the state have the ability and inclination to choose from the various institutional possibilities. And only the people of a particular community have the perspective and the right to make the local choice. The people reserve for themselves the right to dismantle the instruments they have created, including their institutions. The people should not surrender to their county or city government the power to assume the assets of their special purpose districts and the operation of those assets. Nor should they give the special purpose districts they have created the authority to abdicate on their responsibility by handing over their jurisdiction to the cities.
The closest the City comes to providing an argument here against a public vote is their passing observation that both the City Council and Ronald Board were duly elected. The trouble with the "duly elected" argument is that the services of a general purpose government are bundled. One cannot vote on this singular item without voting on the whole bundle. Much of what the City does is wonderful. Must we be forced to vote out an otherwise competent council to prevent a necessarily biased and self-serving action here? Must we throw our baby out with the wastewater? No sane public would do that, because wastewater management is not its number one priority. If we were to accept the "duly elected officials" argument, we would have to forego our powers of initiative, referendum, recall, and impeachment. Fortunately our state legislators were not so shortsighted. They foresaw there are legitimate powers the people reserve for themselves.
The right to decide who runs our utilities is one of them.