Utility rates on the rise

The Ville Platte City Council met Monday afternoon at the Northside Civic Center for its regular monthly meeting and unanimously voted to raise utility rates for residents and businesses.
Before the meeting, a public hearing was conducted to discuss utility rate increases. Several members of the community spoke against the proposed 31% rate increase for residential customers and 47% rate increase for commercial customers. These rate changes would be split over two years, and, starting the third year, rates would increase 2.2% thereafter. Ville Platte Mayor Jennifer Vidrine stressed this increase is not a percentage of bill increase, but rather rate increase, meaning the city is increasing the price it is charging for utilities.
Under the new rates, an average household size of one person who uses an average 2,000 gallons of water per month, and 10 CCF (cubic feet) of gas, would pay $8.35 per month more this year, and, starting June of next year, would pay an additional $9.56 more per month. (See charts for more examples.) This is the first time the rates have increased in the past 20 years.
Renee Brown, Director of the Evangeline Chamber of Commerce, said the Chamber offered ideas and suggestions to the city during a meeting a week prior. She said the fact sales taxes have not gone up in 20 years was brought to the Chamber’s attention at that meeting.
“That was something very disturbing to us because that means everything in the last 20 years has remained the same, so our business people at this time do not have the additional funds for rate increases,” she continued. “The city was telling us insurance was going up, workman’s comp is going up--all of these expenses have gone up for the city, but those are all the same expenses that have also gone up for the businesses. We wanted to know if there could be a decrease in the rate increase. With that we mean there were modifications you were making to the 28 rates you found that were part of the utility program. You reduced that from 28 to five. So we are asking did the 23 rate adjustments improve the overall bottom line in utilities, and if so, how much did it improve. Would we be able to take that percentage and that margin of improvement and pass that on to our consumers.”
Brown then questioned the rate sheet given to the public. “The money generated through utilities also goes into the general fund and other services,” she said. “How much of these funds are going to be used for utility services, maintenance, improvements, the bond payment, etc. How much will go into the general fund, and what does it pay for? What are the services and their impact on our city and government that y’all are telling us y’all have in the works and plans to utilize some of these funds for. We’re just asking for one more appeal for cuts to spending and expenses as well.”
Ville Platte resident Arthur Sampson then spoke at the hearing and used a Coca-Cola analogy that Councilman Bryant Riggs had used at a previous meeting. Sampson said Riggs suggested if the price of Coke or cigarettes increased, consumers would still buy it. Sampson produced several containers of Coke in varying sizes and several packs of cigarettes saying he had choices as to what price he wants to pay for products he uses. Sampson said, “When it comes to city water and gas, y’all not giving them their choices. That’s not fair to the citizens. Y’all not giving us a choice.”
Business owner Jay Gielow said, “We’re paying for the sins of the people behind us, and I get all of that, but I really think we need to be very careful that we’re not just ram-rodding a budget through because we have numbers we need to turn in at the end of the month. I understand numbers need to be met, that things have to be done a certain way, but it’s time to take a look at your creative budgetary resources as far as what we’re doing and what we’re spending money on. So, if things aren’t working, we need to make cuts to the budget. That’s where creativity comes through. Making a decision on budgets should not be rushed at this point.”
After the hearing, the council convened, beginning with the council comments section of the agenda. Councilwoman Faye Lemoine addressed the public, saying, “We care. We understand. Please don’t think we take this lightly. I’ve only been a councilman for a few months, but I promised that I was going to do my best for this town. I want our town to prosper, but we cannot run our town on regrets or wishes.” She added, “The town is on the verge of going under. Don’t think we take it lightly. We are working on another budget. We worked hard on it. We are trying to be creative. I promise you we are going to be good stewards of your money, but we have to have revenue to run our city.”
Sampson then asked the council if it would contribute its raises to help the city’s financial burden, instead of raising rates. Lemoine responded saying she has to pay more for her utilities, too. Sampson again asked if the council would give up its raises. Lemoine responded, “That’s not going to happen, so let’s just drop that.”
Councilman Mike Perron said of the mistakes of past administrations, “We’ve been fighting this thing. We’ve been handed a dirty past. We want to do what’s right. I’ve talked to my constituents. God only knows, this is the hardest thing we’ve had to face. We had a deadline to keep things going. Our sewer system is so bad we’re getting ready to get penalized $50,000 a day if we don’t get something done. We need to make a decision. It’s not a good decision, but we have to do something.”
A concerned resident questioned the council: “How can that fall back on the tax payers when the sewer system is not right? When we’ve been paying higher for the sewer than the water? Y’all should have had way more than enough money to make sure that was done before it started being a problem.”
Perron replied, “The sewer system breaks on a regular basis.”
Councilman Lionel Anderson said, “I feel for the senior citizens in my district. I spoke to most of them, and I understand their situation. I told most of them if they have a problem with the extra $8.35 they will have to pay per month, then come see me. I didn’t get in this for the money. We’ve been having this situation for a long time, before I got here, and I think we need to try to fix it. We’ve had two or three different meetings. Everybody’s not going to be happy. We’ve been through a lot of work trying to get this done. We’ve come up with four or five situations, narrowed it down to two or three, and now down to one.”
Councilman Riggs addressed the public and said: “I’ve been to Vic Slaven’s office many times trying to understand this accounting book. I’m not going to just take a position and just think I know it. I learned it. We’re broke. I did my homework. I explain to the people what’s going on. We’re bad off. We got to get out of this rut. I cannot allow Ville Platte to go down. The past politics are haunting us. I’ve said many times at city council meetings, if I-49 would have passed through here, we’d be a population of 35,000. But somebody said they didn’t want I-49 coming through here. Let it go 15 miles outside the city limits.”
Riggs continued with the discussion of the increased rates: “We’re suffering today because of that. Who knew the businesses were paying the same rates as citizens? We’re not picking on the businesses. The citizens have been paying most of these utilities on their backs. Politics is why we’re here today, because somebody was worried about the next election. I don’t care if I get elected in the next four years. It’s not about that. It’s about doing what’s right for the people. The experts are showing me what the city will become if we don’t do this. So now I have to make a decision. Do I want to see Ville Platte go up, or do I want to see Ville Platte continue going down? I’m going with the option where it’s going to go up. It might be the unpopular vote, but in the end, it will prevail. We can’t do things like we’ve been doing in the past. We can’t play the politics we played in the past. We have to change.”
Mayor Vidrine said, “This has been a struggle for all of us.”
She reminded citizens of the average change in bills for residential rates. She then called for a motion to move the adoption of the utility rate increase ordinance up in the agenda. The council then unanimously approved the ordinance to raise the rates, which will be reflected on the August 1, 2019 bill.
Sampson, who was on the agenda to speak about several issues, used part of his allotted time to threaten a lawsuit against the city council for not allowing public comments before the vote to increase rates. He said, according to the law, the council is supposed to allow public comments before it takes a vote. He added, “A lawsuit will be filed, trust me. I’ll see y’all in court. I just spoke with my attorney.”
Mayor Vidrine told him they had public comments. Sampson pointed out the items on the agenda, one of which was ordinances, and another being public comments on agenda items listed. He said the council moved up the ordinances item, but not the public comments item, which he said was against the law.
A recap of the other items discussed during Monday’s meeting will be in Sunday’s Ville Platte Gazette.