Asking public servants to ignore the law

Yesterday, I got a call from a person who was totally frustrated with the way the City Council doesn’t listen to her and her neighbors when asked to not allow the Sobering Center and now Foundry Village to be built in their neighborhood. She was also upset that the public were told to not speak about the very reason they were at the meeting, not wanting drunks and homeless people in their neighborhood. She was saying that they never listen, so why should she complain about our water and sewer rates?

Land use hearings always have specific criteria that one can speak to, and outside of that, they cannot rule. They give the rules in the introduction and the applicable criteria in the presentation. That you don’t like the kind of people that use a service in your neighborhood isn’t allowed in the criteria.

Last night, there was a delegation of 8-10 people with a couple of speakers who implored the City and Council to enforce the city code against camping in parks, so regular taxpayers can enjoy them. Several Councilors explained that their hands were tied by state and federal law as well as a court order to allow nightly camping in all parks but the All-Sports Park and are not allowed to evict campers for violations of code or camping rules without 72-hour notice. The city is being sued for criminalizing homelessness with camping bans.

You want the Council to listen to you? Don’t ask them to ignore the law. On the few occasions when they have listened to people who didn’t want certain people in their neighborhood, they have been overruled by the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA).

In the case of campers in the parks, if the City ignores the court, it will be found in contempt of court and likely lose their case. We will probably have to put up with campers in our parks until the city builds sufficient shelters to meet their need.

One Councilor keeps pointing out that little houses, small pallet shelter campgrounds and a warming center will not meet the need and not get campers out of our parks. All of them will also have restrictions on who can use such shelter beyond being peaceful and law-abiding, because they are limited and people in the neighborhood don’t want those without shelter lining up early to get in.

What can meet the need is a couple of large hostels, cheap places to shower and sleep for $5-$10 per night, one for families and one for adults only, to keep kids separated from sex offenders. Think of a building like a grocery store with a large open space where there would be hundreds of cots, 6 feet apart, surrounded by: bathrooms; showers; lockers; a dog kennels; a meeting rooms for classes; a reading/dining room; and a parking lot planted with fruits and vegetables in planting strips, all fenced for use only by its customers. No food service, and few rules: be quiet and peaceful; don’t show anyone your guns or drugs; don’t litter or make a mess around one’s bed. Violators could be temporarily or permanently trespassed or made to pick up litter for minor infractions.

When it comes to asking the Council to reform our water rates to pay all the overhead with base rates and only marginal unit costs with unit rates, they have the power to do so. There is nothing in state or federal law that requires water-rationing rates.

You can ask by email, phone calls, writing on the city Facebook page, in person when you meet them, or a 3-minute comment at City Council meetings, first and third Wednesdays at 6:00. Control your anger; don’t attack them; and speak nicely if you want to influence them. They are public servants, but they are not only your servants. Don’t expect instant action; they need a lot of people contacting them frequently to be convinced to change a rate system that has been in place for over 20 years and to buck what has been instituted in cities around the world over the last 35 years.

Join Friends of the Restwell Center to support hostels and fill out your City survey to support use of ARPA funds to build them. It’s due October 22nd. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1681019735495611

Join Ratepayers for Fair Water and Sewer Pricing on Facebook and contact the council about water and sewer rates every month.

Council: Don’t waste our federal funding

 

Our old water treatment plant, still going strong, but slowly falling apart.  The new plant will produce the same amount, but will have room to expand, about 3 blocks behind that big red roof.

            In the July 13^th Daily Courier, we are told that the Council is thinking of using 3 million dollars, a good third of our federal Covid relief funding, to pay for two years of rate increases for the new water treatment plant, an average of $8 per month that would not be added to our bills.  Since we use more water than average, my family would benefit more than most. 

            But such a small benefit would be hollow and temporary, compared to reforming our rate system to pay for all our overhead with base rates and charging only marginal unit costs to our unit rates, the way we used to pay for water when this city was clean, green, beautiful and safe from wildfire.  It is better to take the debt payments off our rates entirely and charge us all but the 18% paid by the Urban Renewal District in our debt payment fee.

We were told, when the debt payment fee was passed, that it would never increase and would go away when the debt was paid.  We were not told that 22% of it would go onto our base and unit rates, where it increases by inflation every year and will never go away.

Some councilors, the Courier said, want to thank essential workers for staying on the job by giving them some federal money.  This is problematic.  Which jobs are essential and who holds them?  How do you find out?  Do the relative few who are paying attention apply and prove it?  It would only cause resentment, dividing residents into classes and paying only some. 

Any money you would give to essential workers would be little compared to what they would gain when you reform water and sewer rates, making it cheap to use water and free to use sewer, like we used to.  A lot of those essential workers are sharing housing and paying more than they should for water and sewer because of water-rationing unit rates.

Housing is what you should spend all that federal money on, starting with two cheap places to shower and sleep for those without secure shelter.  With a few million dollars, you could build a couple of large hostels that can house all our unsheltered residents.  They would be sustainable, because they would be cheap to use, not free.  When you reform our water and sewer rates, they will be more sustainable.

 

Speech to the Grants Pass City Council, 7-21-2021, published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com

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 Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener    541-955-9040    rycke@gardener.com