Greencastle Indiana Storm Water Assessment

TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Hey, Greencastle. At the August 10th City Council meeting, there was discussion about a stormwater assessment being added to our monthly bills.

There were four different rates discussed, and eventually one rate was voted on. Now, this isn't set in stone yet. The community is going to have an opportunity to voice your opinion. 

The discussion landed on a 6 per month assessment that increases by 25 cents over 4 years, ending at 7 per month.

Now what does this mean? This is based on something called an ERU.

An ERU An ERU is an equivalent residential unit. You can also think of that as a single family house.

So if you own a factory, a large building, an institution, a church, a school, something along those lines, you may be paying more than this in your assessment. Although a lot of those organizations have way to receive credits to have reduced payments I'm not going into credits here because I'm more concerned about the single family households or the ERU's

These funds are going to be used for annual [00:01:00] operations and large projects that are necessary for our stormwater system So next time you're out in the rain and you see a storm system overflowing Or if you hear about someone's house being flooded due to the stormwater, this assessment is going to go towards those types of projects.

It was asked of City Council if this money was going to go towards luring in developers and helping subsidize their development, and the Mayor said no. He said this money is going to be used on improving our existing infrastructure. One argument that was brought up is that we've gotten by for so long without this assessment.

We always find ways to have grant money or state matching funds and we make it work. A counter to that argument was that it's up to the city to govern and provide this service and that hoping and wishing we would find the money to make these improvements and keep the storm system operating.

is not good governance.

I'm going to keep you up to date when I find out when the public hearings are and your opportunity to voice your opinion. But feel free to reach out to me if you want me to represent your opinion at a public hearing. If you know how to reach out [00:02:00] to your existing city council person, reach out to them.

They'd love to hear from you to educate themselves on the vote.

Some opinions thought they should start with the lowest possible amount.

Others thought, if we're going to raise it to a 7 fee at some point, let's rip the band aid off so people can prepare. At the end of the day, I know our city council wants to do what's best for you, but if they don't know what you want, it's hard for them to make that decision, and they have to go off of their own instincts.

I hope you found this informational. I'm happy to give you any more information as I obtain it.

Greencastle, if you need anything, please reach out. My phone number's on the website. You can contact me on my contact form. I want to represent you, and I'm here to do that.