Sacramento could ask voters to pay more for storm drains. Will homeowners back measure?
The Sacramento City Council on Tuesday is scheduled to consider asking Sacramento property owners to pay more for a stormwater system fee.
If the council votes in favor, ballots will be mailed to the owners of residential, commercial and business properties in the city in February, according to a city staff report.
The city staff’s proposed storm waste fee increase, first reported by The Sacramento Bee in September, would increase the fee for most single-family homeowners by about $70 per year, from about $135 to $205 per year, based on the size of impervious surfaces.
The increase would bring in about $20 million in new revenue to the city to repair and improve the city’s 100-year-old stormwater system.
More specifically, it would be used to protect drinking water quality; keep chemicals, sewage and human waste out of rivers and creeks; prevent sewage and human waste from overflowing onto neighborhood streets; replace deteriorating pumps that prevent flooding; and repair aging water pipelines and infrastructure, the staff report said.
Without repairs and improvements, many neighborhoods could flood and the rivers could be polluted, the staff report said.
“Sacramento’s flood risk is one of the highest in the nation because it sits at a low elevation on a flood plain and is largely surrounded by levees,” the staff report said. “In most cities, stormwater drains by gravity. The City of Sacramento’s stormwater system relies on a complex system of pumps to drain stormwater into creeks and rivers. Many neighborhoods, including downtown Sacramento, rely on a ‘combined system’ where sewage and stormwater are collected and conveyed in the same system of pipes. If old pipes or pumps fail in these areas, floodwater could include raw sewage, which can be harmful to public health and damage homes and rivers.”
An accompanying map shows that much of midtown, downtown, Curtis Park, Oak Park, Land Park, as well as about half of East Sacramento have a combined sewer system.
The city recently paid $48,250 to poll about 1,200 residential property owners about the idea earlier this year, via phone interviews and an online survey. Fifty-four percent of those polled said they supported an increased fee.
It would be a rare attempt to increase fees or taxes during the coronavirus pandemic. In 2020, county leaders dropped plans to place a half-cent transportation sales tax measure on the ballot, after polling showed the measure was unlikely to pass. Officials cited the pandemic as one of the reasons.
If the council approves mailing out the ballot measure, and it passes, the council would adopt the new rate in April, the staff report said. The fee was last increased in 1996.
The meeting will be held at 5 p.m. Tuesday. It will be live streamed on the city website.
This story was originally published January 31, 2022 at 11:56 AM.
