Board Places Moratorium on Water Resource Fee Assessment
Voting 4 to 1 with Director Roy Vega voting against the motion, the PAWSD Board placed a six-month moratorium, or until December 15, 2010, on assessment of its Water Resource Fee at their regular meeting Tuesday night.
Preferring to outright abolish the fee, Director Vega did not support the motion because, "Although it is a move in the right direction, I cannot suppoprt a fee that cannot be justified."
Prior to the moratorium, a Water Resource Fee of $5,617 per Equivalent Unit was assessed on new connections to the water system or to changes of use that increased water demand, such as a large addition to a home or a new structure (with water fixtures) on a property.
The Water Resource Fee was put in place in 2006 in order to collect funds from new development to help offset the cost of providing services to new development as related to future raw water storage. The Board put this fee in place in lieu of raising monthly service fees. The fee is designed to pay for all elements of future raw water storage such as land acquisition, water rights acquisition, engineering and construction of a reservoir and associated infrastructure such as raw water pipeline, diversion structure and pump.
Currently, a community work group is meeting twice-monthly to bring recommendations to the PAWSD Board regarding how it should plan for future water storage. As part of its decision, the Board approved that if it did not otherwise act on the Water Resource Fee issue [which may occur as a result of the work group recommendations] in the next six months, the WRF would be reinstated at its pre-moratorium level and applicability.
