Minutes 05/12/2020 - Laserfiche WebLink

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May 12, 2020 Stormwater Fee: 1) Voicemail "Hi, my name is Peggy. Well, my phone number, 5 3 6, 8 3, 6 1, I'll live in old charts. And raising the paper were: Ms. Patent is talking about raising the fee for stormwater. An old charged one: we have no stormwater drainage. Ditches OK?I don't think we should have to take a higher fee if we got ditches and they don't even drain they flood every time it rains. Thank you very much. Have a good day. Yeah." Utility Fees: 1) I am absolutely opposed to the radical rate increases proposed for water, sewer and stormwater. Our bills have already been increased dramatically over the past few years, and another increase will be too much of a burden for a homeowner to carry. There must be other compromises that could be made without bleeding us dry for these necessary utilities. Please don’t do this. Jennifer Crowe 516 North Street Portsmouth 23704 2) I would like to voice concerns over the ever increasing water, sewage, sanitation bills that are increasing at an enormous rate. Why? All cities and people are faced with dilemmas of budget with loss of revenues, income and taxes. You may not be raising taxes (highest rate in region) but the ever so yearly automatic increased water sewage, sanitation and trash rates just as well be the same. Now, trying to raise them more in these trying times for if not all, but many. Please stop the automatic increased rates that y’all voted to occur. There should be no raises and no furloughs to give others a raise as was done before. Meal tax increase isn’t so bad to raise, people want to eat. Please review and revised budget to avoid raising fees and taxes. Fred Wald 3) The taxes that residents pay in Portsmouth are already high. We pay more than the neighboring cities. I am opposed to raising the city’s meal tax; and raising stormwater, water, and sewer fees as proposed by City Manager Lydia Pettis Patton. Many residents including my family would eat less at restaurants if the meal tax is raised. That would put an even greater financial burden on restaurant owners who have loss revenues during this pandemic. As a senior citizen and homeowner in Portsmouth for 29 years; I would have to honestly consider moving my family out of the city of Portsmouth if the meal tax and residential fees increase. It would just be too expensive to live in this city considering the services that the city provides. Dale Douglas 3608 Sagewood Drive 4) Added 5/12/20 Although I take some satisfaction in your expressed intent to defer proposed parking fee increases until January 2021, I would like to see you use that respite to take a closer look at the issue. The city administration should present data that makes the business case for 24/7 enforcement of meter and parking lot fees. Even Norfolk does not collect fees at meters on all days and all hours. For Portsmouth the costs of acquiring advanced meters, maintaining them, and patrolling them could offset the potential revenue that they might generate. An additional enforcement consideration is that 24/7 meters could draw vehicles into our parking decal districts, which would also have to be patrolled to deter the meter averse. We should take a very careful look into all facets of this issue before we leap.