Question: When is a tax not a tax?
Answer: When it comes in the form of a mandatory “fee” from Nampa City Hall.
Mayor Tom Dale has sent a letter to property owners inviting them to attend an April 27 meeting at the Nampa Civic Center to discus a plan to curtail the continued pollution of Indian Creek and other waterways in the city with surface runoff.
We have to applaud the Team Tom effort to comply with the Fed Regs, but their language is worthy of a late night infomercial . In the letter and accompanying brochure, they say that, “Because of our growth as a city we are required by the Clean Water Act to develop a program to manage storm water and decrease pollution.”
The City has also come up with a proposal that will cost a mere “$3 to $4 per month” per residence as an “enterprise fund” to take care of surface runoff. Commercial property will pay based on a complex formula of square feet under a roof or pavement.
What this boils down to is: Nampa surface water pollutes natural waterways in violation of the Federal law. To fix it, homeowners face a minimum mandatory tax that could nudge $50 a year.
EDITOR NOTE: We can all expect the same letter from Caldwell Mayor Nancolas over the Pioneer Irrigation legal FUBAR. Growth issues were poorly managed with respect to run off. Public officials have known about this for over 20 years that the clean water act was going to force run off retention. It was brought to light in the late 1980's something had to be done or the FEDS were going to let us have it their way on this issue.
If you read the blue card that came with the letter there are 3 options. the fees range from "appproximatly " $3 per month or $36 per year to approximatly $13.60 per month or $163.20
ReplyDeleteper year. Which one do you think we will have in a couple years? Just another tax.
I wonder how much money Caldwell has spent on the Pioneer Irrigation litigation? I don't like litigation when it stands to reason most folks do not want street runoff irrigating food stuffs.
ReplyDeleteOnly thing I know for certain is my irrigation fee's have doubled for no other reason than the ligtigation costs v. mitigation of the pollution sources. Don't know what Settler's Irrigation and ACHD agreed to but you can sure bet it is headed this direction.
Could this be the actual reason 4-Star XL Beef pulled up stakes and left the Nampa processing plant?
ReplyDeleteMayor Dale - Will your cities precious and heavily polluting golf courses be exempt? What about those areas that have no sidewalks and gutters?
Damn, now I'll have to attend this meeting.