LEONARD GRAY / L’Observateur / December 20, 2000

HAHNVILLE – Two proposed sewer rate increases both fell after discussion Monday by the St. Charles Parish Council. Voters, meanwhile, will consider aone-cent sales tax on April 7 to underwrite the operations of the wastewater treatment program as well as finance the construction of the west bank hurricane protection levee.

One selling point of the tax is that if the tax is approved a proposed immediate rate hike could be rolled back to its present rate. However, therate hikes were not approved.

Director of Finance Lorrie Toups, in discussing the need for the one-cent sales tax, explained that by the parish not having instituted a rate increase three years ago the General Fund assistance it has received instead has been bled dry.

At the same time, other needed capital improvement projects have gone by the wayside and, with the new treatment plants on line at an increased cost than before, the issue has reached a crisis point.

Annual costs for operating the plants have increased by $1.6 million, on topof an accumulated $3.2 million operating loss in the past three years, Toupssaid.

“We’ve been beating this wastewater issue around for months now, and it won’t go away,” Toups commented.

At the same time the estimated cost of pump stations for the east bank hurricane protection levee will run $20 million, and construction for the west bank hurricane protection levee could cost $20-30 million, with Corps estimates as high as $46 million.

Various alternatives to a sales tax were reviewed, Toups added, including an immediate, permanent fee increase, a gradual fee increase and a property tax, which would have added 12 mills.

Questioned regarding the property tax which raised $41 million for construction of the new treatment plants, Toups said that was solely for construction of the facilities and will end once the bonds are paid off.

Councilman G. “Ram” Ramchandran immediately voiced his opposition to animmediate rate hike to $4.05, as Laque proposed, and called it “nothing but afree-lunch program.”Laque responded, “If you had taken your own advice in 1995, we wouldn’t be in this fix today.”The sales tax proposal was approved in an 8-1 vote, with Ramchandran the sole opponent.

Instead, Ramchandran offered an ordinance to boost the rate from the present $1.80 per 1,000 gallons to $2.45 as of Jan. 1, 2001; to $3.10 as ofJan. 1, 2002; and $3.71 as of Jan. 2003, with a minimum monthly charge of$5.

“This is fair, equitable and reasonable, and we wouldn’t need the sales tax,” he said.

Toups said the parish missed its opportunity to raise the rates in a timely manner back in 1997, but she admitted some elements of the proposal, including an electrical use surcharge and a rate averaging formula, proposed by Ramchandran, designed to make the rate structure more balanced.

However, Ramchandran’s proposal fell in a 6-3 vote, with Ramchandran joined by Dee Abadie and Clayton Faucheux.

The other proposed rate change schedule, in an ordinance introduced by Laque, would have boosted the rate to $4.05 per 1,000 gallons as of Jan. 1,2001; $4.15 as of Feb. 1, 2002; and $4.25 as of Feb. 1, 2003.Laque added an amendment to roll back the rate to the present $1.80 if thesales tax passed in April. However, when council members, led by CouncilmanLance Marino, complained it was “holding the voters hostage,” those figures were slashed by Councilwoman April Black to $3.71, $3.81 and $3.91 in alast-ditch effort to save the proposal. The amendment passed, but theamended ordinance failed in a 5-4 vote, with six votes needed for passage.

Voting for the ordinance were Brian Fabre, Barry Minnich, Terry Authement, April Black and Desmond Hilaire. Voting against were Marino, Ramchandran,Abadie and Faucheux.

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