Save Richmond

It just never ends.

Mayor L. Douglas Wilder is proposing a new tax on every Richmond property owner, including churches, to solve the city’s stormwater drainage and water quality problems.

The mayor’s proposal includes a flat $89 annual fee for every homeowner, with higher rates for businesses and nonprofit organizations depending on the expected stormwater runoff from roofs and pavement on their properties. The fees would generate about $15 million in net revenue each year to pay for drainage improvements, maintenance of ditches and catch basins, and enforcement of water-quality regulations.

Scott Burger of the Green Party has been trying to alert City Hall about the city’s considerable water and drainage issues for some time — pointing out that Richmond’s water rates are among the most regressive in the country, for instance, and also suggesting relatively inexpensive conservation efforts to combat runoff. He’s not buying the need for a new tax, or the fairness of it (the city’s announcement that businesses and non-profit groups would be the most affected doesn’t hold much water when you consider that the parking lots of these entities are the main reasons for our drainage dilemmas).

In a correspondence with Councilman Bill “Temporary Meals Tax Hike” Pantele, who seems to support the mayor’s water tax, Burger spilled it out:

This new tax is absolutely outrageous.

We have been very patient about the state of our neighborhood alleys. I have suggested over and over again possible smallscale solutions to stormwater runoff — promoting rain barrels, greenway buffers, and green pavers.

I have also brought attention to the fact that the City has the most regressive minimum water rate IN THE COUNTRY.

Over the years, I have watched the City get millions from Federal and State funds for stormwater runoff…. when Gaston damage happened in our neighborhood, we were told FEMA would pay most of the bill.

Why are you taxing people out of the City? Where is the money going? How can you expect people to pay more for stormwater runoff when its not clear where past monies went?

Citizens can be encouraged to mitigate their stormwater runoff. I have been doing so on my own — promoting rain barrels, greenway buffers, and green pavers. I would even be willing to help pay for green pavers in the public alley by my house. Since the the historic cobblestones have been taken out and replaced with gravel we have seen huge ruts and potholes develop. EagleBayUSA is a local company that is manufacturing and marketing green pavers.

Citizens can also be encouraged to conserve water (by using rainbarrel water for greywater uses, for example) though there is no economic incentive to do so with the regressive minimum water rate.

But what is being done to encourage VCU, government, and the corporations to do more? They should be paying the bulk of the stormwater cost. Its their large parking lots that are producing much of the problem. We only have one or two green roofs in the whole City. Don’t get me started about their propensity for waste and hostility to conservation. To put a finer point on it, VCU and other groups are talking about building giant natatoriums/rec centers when they won’t even build to LEED specifications.

If the regressive water rate was turned right side up, more of these entities would be forced to address their water use AND runoff. They would be more interested in storing and using rain water for their own uses — watering their corporate lawns for instance.

The Green Party have asked that the minimum water rates be adjusted so they mimic Henrico County’s. We realize that it cannot happen overnight, but we would hope that would be the immediate goal or priority. The City sells water to Henrico, Chesterfield, and Hanover counties. I wonder how much runoff is from those counties and how much they are contributing to mitigating the stormwater runoff problem? Why in the world should Richmond residents, who technically own the utility in the first place, pay more in minimum fees than county residents?

How can that be considered fair?

It should be obvious, but if Council and the Mayor are so horrified, why are they in effect raising Richmond’s minimum water and sewer bill even more with this new tax? Again, we already have possibly the most regressive in the country.

The current water structure is not sustainable, but taxing citizens more is not sustainable either.

Burger also points out how water is often wasted in the city, spurred on by Richmond building policies: “Properties without water service are considered vacant. I have a friend who is paying $160/month to have water and gas turned on in a property that’s not being used.” I wonder how many others are doing same, to avoid being put on the building’s “Vacant Property” list (which you can access here)?

Former Mayoral adviser Paul Goldman — more from him here — has also issued a blistering statement that brings up the disturbing political questions surrounding the new, just-announced water tax:

Albert Einstein was way behind Isaac Newton, who had already proven the politics of Richmond in his first law of motion: a body in motion tends to stay in that motion.

When in doubt, raise taxes.

Only this time, instead of all those millions going to a hole in the ground… they are going to another sinkhole.

Despite the Richmond Times-Dispatch story… pointing to the potential of TENS OF MILLIONS in wasteful spending of our city tax dollars… despite the fact that there was extra $500,000 for no-bid contracts that almost got lost in Harry Black’s Black Hole for his favorite venders [these are the ones we know about], MILLIONS in additional fat hidden in the proposed city budget [does the media even bother to check?], another record increase in property taxes, TENS OF MILLIONS… spent on outside lawyers, and consultants, despite these and other things: Richmonders are warned that we will remain underwater unless we have another $15 Million in new water taxes.

Harry Houdini predicted he would come back from the dead, or so the legend says. If he is getting ready to do it, let me humbly suggest Richmond as the place he should reappear. Because his Chinese Water Torture Cell trick doesn’t compare to the magic act in our Capitol City.

According to the City Charter, the city budget - and the requisite utility budgets - had to be proposed by the CAO at a certain date. This new record tax was not included in that budget. It could have been, and indeed, was suppose to be included.

But it wasn’t.

How much is the tax?

Remember how even those who voted for the 1% increase in the food tax said it was a huge increase but would be spent wisely? The new Water Tax would amount to a DOUBLING, a 100% increase in the food tax if it had been proposed back then!

How does the acting CAO justify a last-minute NEW TAX when he admits the city is wasting MILLIONS OF DOLLARS?

If that money can not be managed correctly, why will these new MILLIONS get better management?