By Steve Groves - Correspondent
Weber Sentinel News
Posted on December 2, 2005
When could flushing your money down the toilet be a good thing? Perhaps when it means spending money on sewer systems and a water treatment plant to help keep pace with growth, replace and update aging components and prevent major shutdowns. Turning on the tap, doing laundry and flushing the toilet are daily activities to which we do not give much thought until we cannot perform them.
While there is no imminent threat of major malfunctions, local water systems and the sewer treatment plant are aging and will not last forever. Lance Wood, general manager for the Central Weber Sewer Improvement District, said the treatment plant is 50 years old and normal plant life is usually 20 to 30 years.
Wood said, “We are just about at our capacity now, and we have a growth rate of 3 percent annually.”
The district has hired MWH Engineering from South Jordan to evaluate the plant and system and make recommendations. In a preliminary report released Oct. 17, MWH estimated it will take from $80 to $120 million in improvements and new facilities to meet the area’s projected needs for the year 2025.
MWH Project Director Cory Duncan said failure to keep up with demand and not maintaining the facility could result in failure to meet EPA and state purity standards for the output secondary water that could lead to fines of as much as $25,000 a day.
Wood calculates daily water usage at 110 gallons per person for each of the 150,000 residents in the district.
While the final report is not due till the end of the year, Wood said, “We’ve been working on this for a few years and we are looking for funding from all sources.”
Ogden’s culinary water system is also not keeping up with demand and could need as much as $130 million to maintain needs till the year 2025. Ogden’s Public Service Director George Benford said the infrastructure of Ogden’s water system is 75 to 100 years old while the average design life is 50 years.
In an engineering study prepared by Sunrise Engineering, Inc., of Draper, there are numerous problems in the city system ranging from red rusty colored water to lack of enough pressure for fire protection. Benford admits some parts of town are worse than others, but “We have more needs than funds,” he said “When we go to the city council” the fire department may need a new fire truck so we compete for the dollars.”
He added that the success of the “Slow the Flow” conservation campaign actually hurt the water department because of reduced revenue.
Public Utilities Manager Marvin Zaugg said, “We don’t want the people to have a huge water bill, but the current rates paid are not enough to do all we want.”
Mayor Matthew Godfrey agreed, saying, “We need a philosophical change in the city council to charge rates high enough for replacement and not just repair. We’ve known about these needs for years, and there is a study done every two or three years and they all say the same things. Political motives prevent the council from raising rates.”
The 301 miles of distribution pipeline provide an average daily demand of 255 gallons per person with a peak day factor 473.4 gallons per person. Current policy calls for a residential main pipeline to repair 20 breaks or leaks before the line is replaced and five repairs in a medical or commercial water main.
The Godfrey said, “Leaks are the best barometer. Some of these pipes, even though they are 60 to 70 years old, are still in great shape.”
Ogden’s budget for 2006 is just over $109 million. With estimated costs for overhauling the sewer and water systems approaching $300 million, critics of the mayor question his push for the use of taxpayer funds for the proposed recreation center at the downtown mall site.
“The money comes from separate sources. It is not a choice between infrastructure and economic development. The High Adventure Recreation Center will broaden the tax base. It is an investment in the future that will create jobs for the future. By law the funds for the recreation center cannot be used for the city infrastructure,” Godfrey said.
Sentinel News asked Godfrey if he felt voters sent him a message this election by replacing council members who favored his project with three who specifically objected to the development. He called that idea media hype created by a reporter for a Salt Lake newspaper.
He said his opponents “don’t understand the long process of information gathering and decision making that took place. They came in at the end without all the facts. Show me a critic that’s created anything.”
Godfrey said Larry Miller is ready to build movie theaters and the Boyer Company restaurants if the city does its part with the Treehouse Museum and High Adventure Recreation Center. The museum is under construction.
According to Godfrey, the only sure way to fail is to not do the project.
“Private business is not getting a dime from us. The buildings will be city owned. A recent survey showed 28 percent of the movie-goers at the Layton Mall were from Weber County. We need to keep the daters here. This will be a regional draw,” Godfrey said.
When asked how the mall would affect existing Ogden taxpaying businesses, Godfrey said, “Welcome to free enterprise.”
Sentinel News asked him how city help is free enterprise.
Godfrey said, “I challenge anyone to show me a decaying city center that has recovered without government intervention.”
Newly-elected Ogden city council member Doreen Jeske said she is open minded, but “nothing is going to change the fact that he wants to use taxpayer money for a private park. Gold’s Gym is private and requires a membership. According the mayor’s own figures, only 12 percent of the public will use it.”
Bill Glassman, also newly voted to the council, said, “So far we’ve spent over $30 million in purchasing, demolition and legal issues and haven’t poured a footing. I may not know the specifics, but I know due diligence has not been done. This is a bag of snakes. I would like to be able to get in and dig and find the facts before I vote.”
Godfrey said he hopes “the new council members will be courageous and help Ogden progress.”
--------------------
Editor's note: Posted with the permission of the Weber Sentinel News. Read the original article here.
I'll add that it strikes me as odd that Mayor Godfrey seeks to blame the entire infrastuctural "deferred-maintenance" problem on the Ogden city council -- a council that's been his slavish "rubber-stamp" for the past four years. Everybody knows that it was his idea to plow every available city dime into the rec center project, a project that's deemed risky even by its own proponents. And correct me if I'm wrong about this, but wasn't it Mayor Godfrey's very own idea, to pledge 100% of the BDO lease revenue (which had been ear-marked for infrastructure) at the very last minute, as loan security, in order to save the rec center project?
Comments, anyone?
© 2005 - 2014 Weber County Forum™ -- All Rights Reserved
3 comments:
Since Mayor Godfrey's POV concerning this is diametrically opposed to my own, I will post my opinions on this issue in the interests of fair and balanced comments on blogs.
Mayor Matthew Godfrey agreed, saying, “We need a philosophical change in the city council to charge rates high enough for replacement and not just repair. We’ve known about these needs for years, and there is a study done every two or three years and they all say the same things. Political motives prevent the council from raising rates.”
This is a new one! Never have I heard that the Ogden City Council is the cause of Ogden's infrastructure being ignored. Also, as Rudi said, the mind set that repairs can only be accomplished by rate increases is a narrow one, in view of the fact that a previous Council voted to allocate a percentage of lease revenue from BDO for that very purpose.
"The money comes from separate sources. It is not a choice between infrastructure and economic development. The High Adventure Recreation Center will broaden the tax base. It is an investment in the future that will create jobs for the future. By law the funds for the recreation center cannot be used for the city infrastructure,” Godfrey said.
I assume the Mayor is referring in that last sentence to the TIF from the "10 other RDA projects." Well. Before the RDA became involved in developing projects, the TIFs were originally tax dollars. Had they not been transformed into TIFs, they would have been available for infrastructure needs. There was a choice at that point. Furthermore, if the TIFs were not used for recreation or culture, my understanding is that they would revert to the taxing entities they would have gone to originally, thereby being available for infrastructure repairs. So it it not that we did not, and perhaps do not, have a choice.
Sentinel News asked Godfrey if he felt voters sent him a message this election by replacing council members who favored his project with three who specifically objected to the development. He called that idea media hype created by a reporter for a Salt Lake newspaper.
Of course I cannot speak for all other voters, but my own votes were indeed a message that I did not and do not agree with the current local government's decisions on:
Cutting jobs in the Fire Department, (the City couldn't pay the salaries.)
Eliminating Spring Clean-Up, (after we had a heavy winter and many of us had downed limbs and branches, the City announced this cut because "The City can't afford it," )
Attempting to privatize the Marshall White Center, (because the City couldn't afford it.)
Attempting to take people's homes via eminent domain, (because the city was buying property to sell to WalMart,)
Not caring about the fact that the local contractors on the Union Square project did not get paid, (I remember the mayor's quote: "It's not our black eye if the contractors don't get paid,")
And, in short, concentrating on development projects to the exclusion of meeting the needs of the residents of Ogden.
The reporter from the Salt Lake newspaper had nothing to do with these things.
He said his opponents “don’t understand the long process of information gathering and decision making that took place. They came in at the end without all the facts. Show me a critic that’s created anything.”
To this I would say that those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it. The original Ogden Mall was, after all, a city development project.
According to Godfrey, the only sure way to fail is to not do the project.
I would agree that the only way to fail at this particular project is not to do this particular project. Obviously. But there have always been other ideas and options for downtown revitalization, and these have been turned down.
“Private business is not getting a dime from us. The buildings will be city owned.
I am sure that there are many private businesses in Ogden which would benefit immensely from the city constructing a building for them, built to their specifications, in which to conduct business. I would call this action on the part of the city giving private business more than just a dime.
When asked how the mall would affect existing Ogden taxpaying businesses, Godfrey said, “Welcome to free enterprise.”
That is not free enterprise. That is unfair competition.
Sentinel News asked him how city help is free enterprise.
Of course they did.
Godfrey said, “I challenge anyone to show me a decaying city center that has recovered without government intervention.”
Of course, if the city itself is the proud owner of the decaying city center, and has a Master Plan for the whole thing that it deems shall be strictly adhered to, it makes it sort of difficult for private enterprise to get a foothold.
There.
Dian:
Very good rebutt of the little lord mayor's lame attempt at propoganda. (if his lips are moving he is lying!)
I would like to add - In real estate rental the long time common rental rate is usually one percent of the value of the property as the monthly rental. ( ie - if a business rents a building worth $100,000. its monthly rent is around $1,000.) (is this in the ball park ROD?)
So lets see, the city builds a custom building for these two local business guys for $18,500,000. plus the cost of the underlying land. That means the rent should be, by any normal measure, about $185,000. per month. These two are paying somewhere around $40 to $60 thousand per month depending on who you believe. That means the tax payers of Ogden are subsidizing these two private businesses to the tune of at least $130,000. per month or about $2,000,000. per year.
Godfrey's response - “Private business is not getting a dime from us. The buildings will be city owned."
Interesting, Ozboy.
Your figure of $185,000 a month is very close to the interest we will be paying on the loans in order to build the thing.
Dorothy analyzed the figures released in the Standard about the financials involved in the rec center, and came up with:
"Interest cost for one month.............$183,170.83."
So the traditional lease cost on this building, if we were getting it, would enable us to put $1,000 a month toward the principal of $18.5 million.
But we're not getting it. Hmm.
Ogden Adventure Begins, Dorothy Littrell, WCF Archives
New comments are not allowed.