By Dan Schroeder
Heads up, Ogden utility ratepayers! The city council will hold a special work session tonight at 6 pm in the Megaplex Theater (2351 Kiesel Avenue, second floor). And according to the agenda, it looks like this is when the council will make the critical policy decisions that determine our future water and sewer rates:
The purpose of the work session is to build consensus between the City Council and the Administration on which capital projects should be included in the CIP and the rates model and to build consensus on which policies should be included in the development of a utility rate structure and related ordinance....It is critical that consensus is built regarding the inclusion of project, the timing of those projects, and the structure of the rate ordinance in order to develop a final ordinance for the Council's consideration.A town meeting is scheduled for Thursday, April 5, 2012 to review the Utility Rate proposal as developed by the internal steering committee. The proposal will be developed using the direction given to the steering committee by the City Council from this and other Council work sessions.
In other words, by the time the town meeting is held in two more weeks, the proposal will already be developed (though not yet formally approved).
In case you were wondering, the council will not be taking any public input at tonight's work session. But concerned citizens may still wish to attend, if only to see how these kinds of decisions are really made.
2 comments:
For those Lumpen Ogden City Citizens who are still sitting on the fence regarding tonight's meeting, here's a fantastic Standard-Examiner Letter to the Editor which addresses Ogden City ratepayers' so-far-demonstrated political apathy in regard to this issue:
Don't be fooled twice about Ogden's water rates
As the legendary and curmudgeonly newspaperman/renaissance man, H. L. Mencken famously said, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
Wake Up, Ogden City citizens.
Hopefully tonight's meeting will be filled to the brim with steely-eyed Ogden Water rate payers.
I'm pleased to report that about a dozen citizens did show up tonight although the meeting is dragging on and about half have left. At the rate they're going, we'll be here well past midnight.
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