City Council approves putting stormwater fees on Nov. ballot

After months of debates, arguments and unanswered questions, the Colorado Springs City Council voted Tuesday to cement a set of proposed stormwater fees onto El Paso County’s November ballot.

With Councilmen Don Knight, Bill Murray and Andy Pico in opposition, the council approved an ordinance revamping the city’s existing code on stormwater fees alongside the official ballot language to be used. The council also approved a payment of $137,265 to hold the election. Knight and Pico opposed the payment.

The move is a win for Mayor John Suthers, who has fiercely advocated for the fees’ resurrection since June. His true test, however, will come Nov. 7, when voters will decide whether to follow through with the proposals and impose the fees on property owners once more.

Suthers addressed the council Tuesday afternoon and said he believes the time is right to ask voters to reinstate the stormwater enterprise fund, which was active from 2005 to 2009. Virtually every other major city in the country imposes some type of stormwater fee, but Colorado Springs meets those obligations with money from the general fund, he said.

Regarding stormwater fees, the city has “kicked the can down the road for far too long,” Suthers said.

The city will have a difficult time meeting its public safety needs if it continues funding its stormwater obligations out of the general fund, he said.

Suthers said he’ll draft two city budgets for 2018. One will assume that voters shoot down the proposed fees. The other will include revenue from the fees. That contingent budget likely will include the hiring of 20 police officers and eight firefighters, Suthers said.

Because the fees would not start until July 2018, the city has until then to determine how they will be administered, if they’re approved by voters. As the fees are proposed, residential property owners would be charged $5 every month, while nonresidential property owners would pay $30 per month for every acre of land they own. The fees would last for 20 years and are expected to raise an estimated $17 million annually.

Money from the fees will have to be spent on the city’s stormwater obligations. Suthers has said he wants to spend the money that would be freed up in the general fund updating the city’s aging vehicle fleet and hiring public safety employees.

How the fees will be issued to property owners and what happens if they go unpaid are among the questions to be answered in full.