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officials study options after rejection of fee
POLAND
Until Tuesday, Poland Village had a law and fee attached to it to address storm-water problems.
On Wednesday, village officials dealt with the real-ity that voters rejected that law — with 678 people, about 58 percent, voting to overturn it and 489 people, about 42 percent, voting to keep it.
“Today, no matter what happens, we still have water issues and no better way to address them than we did yesterday,” said Mayor Tim Sicafuse.
The ordinance became law last December and created a storm-water utility fee of $3.50 per one equivalent residential unit, or every 2,500 square feet. All homes regardless of size were equal to one ERU and would have paid $42 annually, according to the law. Land owned by commercial and nonprofit entities was assessed a fee based on square footage, without a cap.
The village opted not to collect those fees because of Tuesday’s referendum, Sicafuse said.
“Something has to be done,” the mayor said, noting the village still has to comply with Environmental Protection Agency guidelines.
Other options for raising revenue may be considered, such as an income tax or street levy, which Sicafuse admitted “have trouble passing.”
“All we can do is suggest something and promote it,” he said.
Street Commissioner Russell Beatty said overturning the law “will definitely limit our ability to make any improvements in storm- water issues.”
The fee revenue could have been used, for example, to replace the village’s 16-year-old leaf machine used in the leaf-pickup program because leaves can contaminate the water.
The village also had a list of more than a dozen flooding-related projects it wanted to fund with the fee.
“There are so many good things we could have done with not a whole lot of money,” Beatty said.
Councilman David Raspanti, who voted for a storm-water utility law when there was a cap on ERUs and then voted against the uncapped version, said he thinks the measure failed because residents are “not interested in paying more.”
“They are maxed out with their finances. We are going to have to get extremely creative. We are required by federal EPA to meet their requirements under the Clean Water Act, whether or not we have the funds to do it,” he said.
The utility was not the first proposed in the area. Struthers, Lowellville, Campbell and Canfield all have storm-water utilities.