City Council Meeting -Dec 2, 2008

It seems that epic-length Council Meetings are officially in season. With last night’s nearly five-hour rumble, the reason for these protracted sessions became obvious: the Council has been procrastinating all year and is only now cramming for finals. The only difference is that algebra rarely ignites controversy.

REGULAR AGENDA
Resolution 37665 Authorizes the sale of a surplus switching locomotive to the City of Fife for $18,000. While the action taken here is somewhat mundane, the drama it created was fantastic. The train in question was built in the ’60s, and is only one of four of its kind left. It was damaged by metal thieves and taken out of commission; so Fife wanted to buy it, make it shiny, and put it in a nice park. But during public comment, a railway enthusiast from Portland complicated those plans by offering to buy the train from Tacoma for $25,000 and to bring up one of his own locomotives for Fife. It looked like a ’30s-style Wheel n’ Deal was about to go down, but in the end the council decided to let Fife take the train rather than open it up to a public bidding process. Oh well.

Resolution 37667 Adopts the City’s revised six-year comprehensive transportation program. The plan proposes $61 Million for projects over the next six years, and provides a rough outline for how those funds will be distributed. However, the plan does not necessarily guarantee money for every project it describes, and even last night the Council was pecking away at a $60,000 survey for a trail along Schuster Parkway.

First Reading of Ordinances
Ordinance 27765 Increases rates for the wastewater and surface water utilities by 6.2% for 2009 and 7.8% for 2010. These increases means that, by 2010, the average household will pay about $7 extra per month for these utilities. This may not seem like a lot, but when compounded year after year, these rate hikes add up. The council seemed supportive but several members voiced disapproval, pointing out that no one would tolerate such steep tax increases.

Ordinance 27766 Increases rates for the solid waste utility by 5% for 2009 and 2010. Like the previous ordinance, this represents a pretty sharp rate spike, but the City is trying something different with this one. The rate increases are gradated by the volume a household’s trash can. Those who put out 20 gallons a week will only see a 2% increase, while those who need 90 gallons will pay 15% percent more. These rate hikes will compound annually, so soon households who use the larger-volume trash cans will be paying substantially more. The City hopes this structure will make we citizens throw out less junk, and recycle more. Councilman Lonergan voiced skepticism, saying that eventually everybody will be paying more, since the cost of sending trucks to pick up cans is fixed regardless of whether someone uses 20 or 90 gallons, but landfills charge higher rates when volume goes down. Mayor Baarsma countered by noting that sending excessive trash to Oregon—a real possibility—would be far more expensive than paying more at the dump.

Ordinance 27768 Adopts the 2009-2010 Biennial Budget. Don’t hold your breath on this one; the city got hit by news of$5.1 Million in new expenditures yesterday, so the final reading of the budget is being held until the December 16 meeting. Expect the numbers to change by them.

Ordinance 29969 Adopts several amendments to the comprehensive plan. We covered the public hearing on these amendments last week.

Ordinance 27770 Adopts amendments to the downtown Tacoma element of the comprehensive plan. We covered those amendments several weeks ago.

PUBLIC HEARINGS
Two brief public hearings took place last night on budgetary matters. The first, on the 2009-2010 community service recommendations, outlined the $2.2 million that the Human Services Commission recommends the City award to local non-profits. No controversy on this one, but several representatives from the organizations that will receive these grants did step forward to express their gratitude. If you ever wanted to feel good about this city, you could have done worse than hearing those people talk about their work.

The other hearing concerned the biennial budget which, as mentioned earlier, has been postponed. Two representatives from the Farmer’s Markets still spoke to the Council, requesting funding to bring a new market to South Tacoma. The Market folks acknowledged that these are not great economic times, but, well, who can argue with more Farmer’s Markets in Tacoma? We hope the Council gives this one some serious consideration.

Whew.