Yet another lawsuit has bee filed against the City of Nampa over the stormwater "fee" levied against property owners.
If class acion is granted, Nampa could have every property owner in the city seeking refunds for a stormwater utility fee that many claim is an illegal tax.
A class-action complaint filed Wednesday seeks to have Nampa's $3 per month-per resident stormwater fee and ordinance declared invalid and all the fees collected under the program refunded. The plaintiffs are: "Ronald W. Van Auker, JBR LLC; RVRV LLC; Hogan LLC; Deer 1 LLP; Par 3; Idaho Industrial Development and all other similarly situated." Commercial properties are charged based on square footage.
Republic Storage filed a similar complaint against the city on December 14. THE GUARDIAN warned of potential class action at that time.
The Idaho Supreme Court ruled in November the City of Lewiston's stormwater fee was illegal because the state has not authorized cities to collect a stormwater tax. The plaintiff's attorney E. Don Copple and Heather Cunningham of Davidson, Copple. Copple & Copple say Nampa's stormwater ordinance and fee is nearly identical to Lewiston's and should also be declared illegal.
Nampa's legal team is a private firm that probably advised the city regarding the ordinance that created the fee.
Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2011/12/22/1926794/class-action-suit-filed-against.html#storylink=latest#storylink=cpy
The only way to stop the city leaders from continuing the hog wild spending and taxing of the taxpayer is to sue them. Mr. Van Auker should be commended.
ReplyDeleteThe lawyers for Nampa had to know Lewiston was in the midst of litigation over stormwater fees; why didn't they wait until the Lewiston case was settled?
ReplyDeleteNow taxpayers get to pay city legal fees on these two lawsuits because a knot-head like Mr. Dale will not capitulate and admit he was wrong headed in this matter.
We can let Tom Dale know he was wrong at election time.
ReplyDeleteTom Dale should resign. We have two lawsuits on stormwater fees just because he could not wait a short while to make certain the fees were legal. Perhaps he knows something we don't about to happen in the Idaho Legislature this next session.
ReplyDelete2012 could be a good year to file a petition of recall against the Mayor of Nampa.
ReplyDeleteI really suspect what happened in this case is that T Dale, the City Counsel, and in particular the attoruney wizzards were not aware of anything going on in Lewiston or for that matter north of the River Boise. They were so busy being geniuses and backslapping each other on their brilliant coup, they completely missed it.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit having hired legal council capable of such malpractice.
If there is a way to steal from an employer with poor internal controls, eventually someone will steal from their employer. Most employees are honest and hard working and it takes two way trust for this to work along with internal controls of cash.
ReplyDeleteIt might be valuable to take a step back and consider whether there is a problem at the heart of this issue. For example, is storm water runoff posing a problem for the citizens and property owners of Nampa. If it is, then the questions become: 1) how can it best be addressed (by the City or by individual property owners/citizens); and 2) how can the cost of addressing the problem most fairly be apportioned among those contributing to the cause and benefiting from the solution. Should the cost be apportioned based on the value of real property or based on the proportion of contribution to the cause of the problem. The storm water fee simply tries to do so in the latter manner.
ReplyDeleteHaving read the Idaho Supreme Court decision, it is my opinion that the Court ruled that Lewiston's approach was illegal because it constituted an unauthorized tax - not that a properly structured and managed service fee is not allowable in Idaho. The Court basically pointed out what a City would have to do to construct and adopt a fee that would not be a tax in disguise and thus illegal.
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of this for most citizens to understanding is that (in legal terms) local governments are funded by FOUR types of revenues: 1) taxes; 2) fees; 3) assessments; and 4) exactions. We all thing of all charges as "taxes". But the Court's have ruled that the four mechanisms mentioned above are actually different, and for good reasons have to fit with the characteristics that the Courts have defined for each. It is complicated, but that's the way municipal government finance is structured.
The Guardian has looked into this issue and it boils down to something the Fed's call NON POINT SOURCE POLLUTANTS ending up in the nations rivers and streams. Non Point stuff is all the gunk that ends up on streets, sidewalks and other surfaces draining to any city storm water system draining directly to rivers and streams. Crankcase oils and other fluids leaking from cars and trucks, chemicals and fertilizers and anything else you can think of swept up by storm water flows.
ReplyDeleteOther cities and municipalities have faced this same issue with all manner of methods used to keep run-off from ending up in rivers and streams.
We live in a desert and not much from residences ends up in the street storm drains but the gunk from the streets from the dry time of year does. Everything in and on streets and paved parking lots w/o containment facilities ends up in rivers and streams.
Go to Wikipedia and do a search on the Clean Water Act and there is a considerable body of information. Cities where it rains a lot like Seattle and Portland have already taken or are taking steps to deal with storm water issues.
Here is a useful link to an EPA brochure on storm water issues:
ReplyDeletehttp://water.epa.gov/action/weatherchannel/stormwater.cfm
My biggest concern is not whether it is a tax or a fee but it was taken out of the general fund and made a seperate entity. The billing is a joke and the way it is being done costs an arm and a leg for administration and postage. Of course if left in general fund city might have to squeeze something else but so far no hard choices have been made. It is all about increasing revenue
ReplyDeleteMayor Dale has said this would do nothing to improve water quality so what is the problem?City offiials have also said they have no data on whether water is cleaner or dirtier from samples taken before city limits and after city limits on drains that run thru the city. The idea that DEQ will accept more beauracracy as an answer is probably accurate as we have seen with the auto emissions tests. Just look like you are doing something no matter what the results are and DEQ hopefully will accept it
ReplyDelete