Joey Garrison over at The Tennessean has a story about how our stormwater fee is not high enough to cover the infrastructure projects we need on our aged stormwater system. There is a lot that is infuriating about this story. There’s the fact that some of our drainage system is 150 years old, which means that for a hundred years, the city has been asking itself if it should do something about the ancient pipes and then shrugging and deciding to let it be the future’s problem. Thanks, past Nashville.
Second, when you call something a “stormwater fee,” taxpayers assume that the fee is going to cover stormwater projects, not to cover “smaller maintenance projects and operational costs such as salaries, benefits and street sweeping,” because operational costs and regular maintenance costs should have been built into the city budget already. I mean, is the city arguing that no one’s salaries got paid before the stormwater fee went into effect? No, but instead of using new revenue for new projects, they did the same old bureaucratic shuffle. That sucks. And shame on the city for doing it.
Third, though, and most maddening, is this bullshit about how businesses aren’t paying their fair share:
Nonresidential stormwater rates are capped at $400. But an alternate plan pushed in 2009 by former council members Jason Holleman, Emily Evans and others — that would have generated more revenue — would have eliminated that cap and simply charged $3 for every 3,200 square feet of impervious surface.
Under the current structure, a company with 1.5 million square feet pays about $400 per month. Under the competing plan that failed in the council, the same company would have to pay $1,400 a month.
“We have only ourselves to blame,” Evans said of the backlog in projects, noting that the alternate stormwater fee proposal was projected to produce about $23 million in annual revenue.
“It used a very equitable fee arrangement that did not negatively affect small property owners to the benefit of large property owners,” she said, recalling the 2009 debate. “And the mayor, and in particular the deputy mayor, decided at the time they didn’t want to do that.”
We are chumps. Emily Evans is right. We let businesses in areas we know — and they know — flood. Then we have a tragic flood and their businesses go under water. And then they lobby for a flood wall. And they’re paying at most $400 a month? Nashville, there’s being business-friendly and then there’s just being foolish. This situation is foolish.
