Pending San Juan County stormwater fees steeper than the last proposal

But anyway you slice it, property owners in San Juan County can expect to pay stormwater fees that are steeper than the ones voters overwhelmingly rejected a year ago in November.

Crafted by a County Council sub-committee, the proposed fees and a trio of financing options will be under the spotlight in a series of public meetings that began Tuesday at the Mullis Senior Center in Friday Harbor. (See sanjuanjournal.com for details of that meeting).

Similar meetings will take place Wednesday on Lopez, beginning at 4 p.m. at the public library, and on Orcas on Thursday, beginning at 4:30 p.m. at the senior center in Eastsound.

Last year, voters shot down a $46.30 parcel fee that applied countywide in the first-ever county referendum. The council sub-committee has been attempting to replace that fee since its defeat last November. It has offered up three financing methods, one of which is a similar, universal parcel fee in which all property owners, regardless of location, would pay $64.45.

Councilman Rich Peterson, San Juan North, last week said that price was only one issue that prompted defeat of the earlier fee. He said that voters saw a poor connection in the "cost-benefit" of that fee and in the equity of how the funds it would have generated were to be used.

Furthermore, Peterson said the higher "parcel" fee reflects greater certainty in the cost and number of projects which will be needed throughout the county over the next five years. Peterson, chairman of the stormwater sub-committee, noted the previous fee would have fallen short in generating enough revenue to pay for projects slated for Eastsound alone.

"The ordinance was shot down, in my opinion, not only because of the costs involved," he said. "It wasn't accurate."

For revenue to be collected next year, fees would need to be in place by mid-November, or by the time the 2009 county budget is approved.

Peterson added that all three financing methods will cover the cost of the so-called Rasmussen Plan, which, though controversial, outlines the stormwater projects required in Eastsound by the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board. The island's urban growth area would be jeopardy of being struck down by the Hearings Board without financing for that plan in place.

Still, how much property owners pay will depend on the method chosen by the council and, under the other two, on the location of any given property. Overall, county officials expect to raise $3.3 million over the next five years, $2 million of which is earmarked for Eastsound. (Roughly $700,000 is slated for San Juan projects and $600,000 for Lopez, the majority of which would be spent in the village).

Under the method preferred by the sub-committee, property owners in the two urban growth areas, Eastsound and Lopez Village, would pay the highest fees; roughly $208 in Eastsound and $228 in Lopez Village. San Juan Island property owners, excluding those in Friday Harbor, would pay $55.95 while those on Orcas, and outside the UGA, would pay $64.30.

Below are fees If each island pays for it's own improvements.

-- SJI; $46.59

-- Lopez; $62.18

-- Orcas; $103.55

-- Shaw; $46.06

-- Outer islands; $22.97 (basic fee)

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