No More Open Burning in Gautier

Well if you read the paper this week you saw that open burning is no longer allowed in Gautier. The Fire Chief cited a state DEQ regulation as the reason to stop the issuance of burning permits. What seems odd is that none of the surrounding cities or the county chose to change their policies, also if you look at a copy of our burn permit it is based on the International Fire Codes. Can these Codes be that for out of sync with State Regs. If they are on this, what else might they be wrong about.

I do know it's a damn shame that we can no longer rake up a little pile of leaves in our yards and burn them. Whats next our fireplaces, chimineas, and that evil polluting barbecue grill.

Water and Sewer part II

One of the comments on Mondays post about water and sewer asked some questions about water quality and price of both water and sewer. I will attempt an answer and maybe shed some light on how our water and sewer system operates.

1. There are certain minimum standards our water has to meet to be considered safe to drink and as far as I know we have never not met these standards, even after Katrina our water was safe to drink. Now what is not a criteria for safe water is color and our water does in some areas of town have a tint to it. While this color maybe unappealing to some, it does not make our water undrinkable. It is simply a characteristic of the water that comes out of our wells and is common to most ground water in this area. Some wells seem to run clearer than others and one plan is as we add wells to the west, if they are clearer we may can turn off some of our worse wells. There is also a study underway to determine ways to reduce the color and the cost of the options that will work. I have lived either here or Moss Point almost my entire life and to be honest the water color doesn't bother me at all. I drink it , cook with it, shower in it and the tint of the ice cubes blends well with ice tea.
2. Why is the sewer bill equal to the water? All the water that enters the sewer system, down your drains, through broken clean outs in yards or rain water that just leaks into the system is pumped to the treatment plant in north central Gautier of Martin Bluff Rd. This plant is owned by the Jackson County Utility District. The measure the amount of sewage the receive from us and charge us a monthly fee, this fee is in the 80 to 90 thousand dollar range per month. Short of individually metering the sewer flow for every customer, which could be done at great expense in both materials and maintenance, the only way to determine how much you put down the drain is to use your water usage. This is why it makes sense to get a second meter if you use a lot of water outside.
3. Now to the cost of water and sewer. You have the debt service we assumed from the GUD and debt the City has incurred in expanding service both out 90 and up 57, We still owe a lot on our system as a lot of it is fairly new as water and sewer systems go. On the water side we have I believe 8 wells to operate and maintain, I am not sure what the power bills run on the wells but they have large motors and they run a lot. There are also maintenance cost for the distribution system, both materials and manpower. We also have the elevated tanks that need maintenance. As for sewer you have the monthly fee to JCUA, operational cost for the over 100 lift stations , I'm not sure about their power bills either. You must also maintain both the pumps in the lift stations and collection system.
4. As I said in the Monday Post Gautier simply takes all of this into account and charges what it cost . We could use smoke and mirrors and shift some of these cost to other revenue streams but if property taxes were used we would soon be in the fix other cities are in.

Paving Streets Now or Later?

In the discussion of the illegal appointment of the City Clerk , it seems the talk has turned to the subject of paving. In the last 4 years it seemed like I received more calls about asphalt than anything else. In Gautier our paving budget comes from the County, they give us the money from a portion of the taxes they collect inside the city limits. Lately the amount has been in the 200 to 300 thousand dollar range.

Prior to late 2005 a group of city employees and maybe some of the council would come up with a list to give to the county late in the year for the next years paving. For some reason the county never got a list for 05 and no paving was done. Late in 05 we asked about the list and how streets got on the list and after finding out about the process, a new comprehensive list was formed.

All 400 + streets were listed and evaluated based on several criteria including condition of pavement, traffic counts, buildout, etc. Out to the west we had several streets with no pavement.

So with the new complete list we would turn in say the top 20 streets and based on the cost of asphalt the county would pave as many as the money would allow and those would rotate to the end and the rest moved up for next year. We also will get some FEMA money to repave some major streets damaged by debris hauling after the storm.(i hope)

Now as to the road to Indian Point, for years there was a question as to who was responsible for that road and last I heard it was determined it is the City's road. The problem then is how to pay for repairs, if it is simply moved to the top of the list(and it may well deserve to be there ) it would probably use up several years of paving budget and no other streets could be repaved. It was suggested in a previous comment that the amount of taxes Indian Point pays should be the reason to pave, but I am not sure City services should be allocated based on the taxes you pay.

One suggestion I made in the past and will make again is we have an unused Katrina loan of just under 2 million at a very low interest rate and we know that as oil prices go back up we may never see asphalt this low again so pave as many streets as we can now. Even half of that money would pave what the county does for us three or four years.What do you think ?

Water, Sewer, and Garbage

The Sun Herald paper of 7-13-09 had an article about cities along the coast subsidizing water and sewer bills with tax dollars from the general fund. Back before the City assumed control of the old GUD, the GUD did subsidize rates with a property tax they were authorized to levy. When the City took over, the tax went away and the City was faced with how to replace the money the tax generated. One choice was to simply transfer money from the general fund to the enterprise fund, but then you have to raise taxes to replace that money and you end up with rates that are artificially low and people with higher valued homes pay more for water and sewer,not because they use more, just because there property has a higher value.

While not popular, Gautier decided to just charge a rate that covered cost and we not only did it for water and sewer, we also did the same thing with garbage.We also adjusted the charges to connect to the sewer and water system and while some will tell you these are to high, I had a local developer tell me that these should be artificially low and the money could be made up by raising taxes because " most people would not even know their taxes had been raised"

So while other cities struggle with their water and sewer rates, Gautier is clearly ahead of the pack on this issue.

Thanks for all the comments

The last few days have been very active. I appreciate everybody who has taken time to read and comment. Most have been published although I keep getting one particular suggestion for me that I assure you I am not limber or flexible enough to do even if I wanted to.

I will not have computer access for the next couple of days , so comments won't show up for a day or so. I have received emails with some good ideas for future polls and topics.

again thanks

Insurance for the Council, is it a good idea ?

Now that the Council has voted to provide health insurance to themselves, the first question that comes to mind is how are they going pay for this benefit. The reason given for changing the attorney was to save money. Are they planning for these savings to go for things that are beneficial to the taxpayers(it is their money) or will the savings go to Council benefits that do nothing for the citizens.

In the real world benefits are often used to attract or retain employees, I doubt there are any people out there not running for office because health insurance is not offered.

Adding the Council to insurance was briefly discussed 4 years ago but was never seriously considered. I believe it has been considered by other Councils but they too rejected the idea.

I am not sure when this benefit goes into effect, but in these tight economic times , I don't think this is the best use of the taxpayers money.

New City Clerk (is it legal)

Adrienne Howell was appointed City Clerk in Gautier Tuesday night. State law says the city clerk is a municipal official and therefore must be a resident and voter in the City of Gautier. It seems that Howell lives in George County not in Gautier. During her time as City Clerk in Ocean Springs she dodged the residency requirement by having a place in Ocean Springs to stay in during the week and would "go home on the weekends". I am not sure if she has secured a Gautier address yet as she was appointed without discussion at the meeting. It seems the new council wasted no time to start skirting the law. Below is part of the AG's Opinion on City Clerks.

1981 WL 39600 (Miss.A.G.)

Position: City Clerk.

Response: These sections are cited:

Ҥ 21-9-21. All officials and employees of city except councilmen and mayor to be appointed.

In a city in which the council-manager plan of government is in effect under the provisions of this chapter, no city official or employee shall be elected by the voters except members of the council and the mayor. All other officials and employees shall be appointed as hereinafter provided.”

Ҥ 21-9-29. Duties of city manager.

The city manager shall, subject to law:

(a) Be responsible to the council for the entire administration of the city government; ...

(d) appoint and remove all department heads and other employees of the city, except that notwithstanding any other provisions of this chapter, the council shall appoint the city attorney, the auditor, and the police justice, if any, and the council may, in its discretion, appoint the city clerk and treasurer; ...”

The cited sections and Section 21-9-83, supra, are read to mean that however the city clerk of a council-manager form of government attains office that person is a municipal officer.

Section 250 of the Mississippi Constitution of 1890 provides:

“All qualified electors and no others shall be eligible to office, except as otherwise provided in this Constitution; provided, however, that as to an office where no other qualification than that of being a qualified elector is provided by this Constitution, the legislature may, by law, fix additional qualifications for such office.”

To be eligible for municipal elective office, a person must be a qualified elector of the municipality. To qualify as a municipal elector, a person must reside within the corporate limits of the municipality.

The appointment of a city clerk instead of election of this officer would not alter the requirement that this officer be a qualified elector of the municipality.

It is, therefore, the opinion of this office that the appointed city clerk of a council-manager municipality must be a qualified elector of the municipality, and, consequently, a resident of the municipality.