Overburdened by the City with UEP Charges

Utilities Expansion Pr...
Written By

The City Finance Director Victoria Bateman, City Manager John Szerlag, the Past Mayor and the past City Council (including Rick Williams) adopted a Utilities Expansion Financial plan that grossly overburdens the Northwest Cape Property Owners.

  • For those Property Owners that could not afford to pre-pay, a Penalty Tax of $1344. was added to the Line Assessment charges and an additional Penalty Tax of $1350. was added to the CFEC charges. These additional Taxes total $2694.00
  • Also, for those Property Owners unable to pre-pay, the City is charging 5% interest per year. This 5% charge will be used to pay the 1% interest being charged by the State SRF Loans.
  • To add insult to injury, the City Finance Dept. is also charging a Collection Fee.
  • The residents that couldn’t pay were unable to do so because of their finances. They do not deserve to be additionally burdened.
  • There are approximately 7000 Property Owners that could not pre-pay. Based on the data that I secured from the City, those Owners will pay the City over $900,000 dollars in interest and collection charges per year.
  • Overall, the City will collect from these 7000 Property owners, over $17.4 million per year in Assessments, Interest and Collection Charges.
  • Additionally, before the end of the year all UEP area homeowners will be required to pay approximately $2000. to a Plumber, to connect to the City Utilities.

This project has become a City revenue generating scheme, with the blessing of the City Councils past and present. They chose to not question any details with regards to the UEP Project. We are not being fairly represented and they continue to overburden the Property Owners with additional TAXES!!!

Latest List of Audit Questions

What Can You Do?

The Mayor and City Council needs to make the following changes to the UEP Financial Plan.

  • Eliminate the Penalty Taxes of $2694.00
  • Reduce the Interest Rate to the exact rate charged by the State.
  • Eliminate the Collection fees charged by the City Finance Dept.
  • Change the CFEC payback timetable from 6 years to 20 years.

Call and Write all the Council Members, the Mayor and the City Mgr. with your concerns, regarding these UEP costs. To those that are not in the UEP areas, these costs will affect you in the future, with greater construction costs.

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