By REID TUCKER
DeFuniak Springs City Council proceedings waxed philosophical on the night before elections, with Councilman Mac Carpenter invoking founding father Thomas Jefferson before launching a renewed debate about the city’s moratorium on impact and tap fees.
“Thomas Jefferson said ‘I never a considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion or philosophy as cause for withdrawing from a friend,’ and I consider everyone at this table a friend, so please don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say,” Carpenter said.
“In hopes of spurring some kind of economic development…the council decided to give away water and sewer taps to anyone who wanted one for about a year. There was no caveat to ever actually build anything, which was really the intent of giving away the tap fees.”
Carpenter opposed the moratorium on the collection of impact and tap fees going back several years and he did the same, along with Councilman Mac Work (who was absent at the April 13 meeting), a few weeks ago when the board voted 3-2 to continue the impact fee moratorium. This time, however, Carpenter’s critiques were backed up with data compiled from Public Works Department records showing the costs of the 2011-2012 tap fee waiver program and the impact fee moratorium, now in its fifth year.
In his report to the other Council members, Carpenter showed that the city gave away 308 water taps in that 12-month period, losing $428,275 in fees alone, but the total amount of lost revenues added up to $735,474 when combined with the impact fee moratorium active at that time. Additionally, Carpenter showed where the city spent $826,725 for the installation of those taps when labor and equipment costs, water main extensions and free water tap removal costs are factored in. City Manager Sara Bowers intoned that, while it is true the city was responsible for labor and equipment related costs associated with its agreement with new tap customers, the actual amount may not be 100 percent accurate, and furthermore that the city is nevertheless drawing revenue from those taps.
The packet Carpenter provided to the Council showed that only 66 of the 308 free system taps are for locations inside the DeFuniak Springs city limits, with 11 going to existing buildings and 10 being entirely new constructions. Finally, he said that, of the 66 new taps in the city limits, 45 are still vacant lots with the owners paying the minimum bill, equating the arrangement with an “interest-free loan.”
Carpenter, an employee of Walton County, said the “laudable effort” made by the Council of a few years ago to spur economic development had not played out as intended while having unintended consequences for the city.
“On behalf of the county, I’d like to thank the taxpayers and utility rate payers of the city of DeFuniak Springs for increasing the unincorporated tax base of Walton County,” he said. “However, as a city councilman and as a utility rate payer, and taxpayer within the city limits, I’m a little irritated, quite honestly. I’m having to pay a portion of this $826,000 that largely went to put taps in outside the city limits that I’m not benefitting from.”
Carpenter also said he objected to the length of time given as notice to the public that the Council would make a decision regarding extending the moratorium on impact fees, an item he said is a significant part of the city’s fiscal policy. He said notification of the inclusion of the impact fee moratorium on the last regular meeting agenda was made at noon the Friday prior to the March 23 meeting.
The other councilmen at the meeting had their own takes on the issues brought forward by Carpenter. Councilman Kermit Wright, whose ideas about revisiting the city sign ordinance got some traction earlier in meeting, said the 2011 Council (of which he was a part) made the best decision it could with the information – and the best of intentions – available at the time.
“If I could look into the future three years from the time we make any decision, I would like that,” Wright said. “We are elected people to represent the citizens and whenever we make a decision it’s the best we can possibly do. None of us are stupid enough to make a decision that we know is not (good) for the citizens.”
Councilman Ron Kelley disagreed with some of Carpenter’s conclusions, reminding the board that the property owners who did not go ahead and develop on their land nevertheless paid and are paying for services they are not receiving. This generated and is generating revenue for the city while helping to cover the city’s outlay for the taps provided to other new customers.
“In fact, the longer they wait, they’ll have paid their tap fee by the time they get around to it,” Kelley said. “We’ve been taking money all this time from those people for a service they already know they’re not getting. That’s what they agreed to do to avoid the initial tap fee.”
Carpenter asked the city manager to provide documentation identifying what new construction has resulted from the fee waiver program, as well as all water and sewer taps not yet installed by program. He also asked Bowers to identify the monetary amount of all unfunded installation liability for the program as of Sept. 30, 2014, and all related information to be provided included in the Fiscal Year 2014 audit. Finally, he requested a monthly update on the status of the assignment until its completion.
He made these directions in the form of a motion, but it died for lack of a second, so he instead asked Bowers to compile the necessary data and to submit it for the Council’s information. She said a public records request applies only to existing documentation, whereas a request of the sort made by Carpenter was for the production of new documents. Since some of the 308 new taps were made outside the city limits, it can mean the city will incur a cost from Walton County while putting together the public records documentation.
“I don’t think it’s going to [cost] that much, and if there is I’m willing to pay for it myself, personally,” Carpenter said. “I’ll make that commitment to find out exactly how many building permits actually got pulled as a result of [the tap fee suspension].”
