China Cassidy The Holbrook City Council held a public hearing last week on Aug. 13, to discuss and vote on a resolution that would increase sanitation rates and transfer site fees. Before the council gave their approval on both items Human Resources Director Pat Nichols spoke at the podium to offer his thoughts on why the sanitation rate increase was necessary and how the new rates would benefit the City of Holbrook and residents as a whole. As the only person who took advantage of the opportunity to voice an opinion during public comments, Nichols offered, “I just want to take a moment as a front-line observer and employee of the City of Holbrook to give you my observations concerning this. I get to see daily the revenues that come into the city and the expenses that go out. I get to observe and take care of those monies on a daily basis. The sanitation department actually is an enterprise fund, we have three enterprise funds, water, wastewater and the sanitation department. For many years they’ve been kind of lumped together as one fund which really isn’t kosher but the reason that was done is because sanitation has lost money for many, many years and instead of addressing the problem, it was kind of covered up.” Nichols explained that the funds that have been being used within the sanitation department of the city, were not rightfully spent because the funds were reallocated from other departments. “So, using the phrase, robbing Peter to pay Paul, and we all know how that works out. Funds from other departments and enterprise funds were utilized to help subsidize the sanitation fund. When you do that, when you take funds from other departments and other enterprise funds, those departments suffer. You have backhoes that break axles and the rear wheel falls off. That happened last month. You have Vaccons (sewer excavators) that break down constantly because we need parts to repair them. You have street sweepers that go down that are not repairable and not replaceable. We’re still without a street sweeper.” Nichols said that an increase in rates and the correct allocation of funds would ultimately allow for purchases of necessary equipment to alleviate some of the manual stress put upon the employees. “You have employees that work overtime with poor or no equipment trying to keep our obligation to this community and our citizens. It rolls downhill when you take funds from somewhere else to subsidize something else. We as a city and as a council have an obligation to take care of our community and our citizens and we’ve put this off long enough. “The last time that I personally can see where this was addressed was 2003. That’s 17 years that there has not been any real justification in looking at the rates for sanitation.” Nichols noted that having the money to purchase necessary tools and equipment would benefit productivity. “Therefore, the other departments’ staff employees’ morale will boost. Right now, we’re working our employees to death because they don’t have the equipment to do the necessary and proper job, they’re having to do it manually. It’s not fun to ever see rate increases but a gallon of milk 20 years ago wasn’t the price it is right now. Neither is the APS rates. I mean it’s inflation, so we’ve got to face the reality and we got to take care of our community,” said Nichols. The APS rate increase that Nichols was referring to will increase customer bills anywhere from 3.4 to 5.6 percent if the Arizona Public Utility Commission approves the company’s request to move forward with the rate increases. With no other members of the public present to speak, the board moved to approve the resolution to increase sanitation rates and did so unanimously. Councilman Dixon offered his perspective as to why this would be more beneficial to the citizens of Holbrook. “If we would have stayed with our previous contract with Larson Waste, we’d be paying over $10 more than we would be now with these new rates. So, I just want to make sure that the citizens understand that manager Soltis kept these rates down. Like Pat said, everything is going up. It’s just been so long since the city has addressed this, and it’s been past time.” Councilman Adam Marsh also spoke of the need for the increase, stating, “This is a 56 percent increase from what we’ve been paying last year, which is too much as an increase in one year. That’s going to be tough for people to budget next year and we understand that. But now that CPI (consumer price index) increase is incorporated, and if you look at the last 12 months CPI has ranged from an increase of 0 to an increase of 2.5 percent, and I’ll pick even on a bad day, 2.5 percent increase over the 56 percent increase. This is going to hurt temporarily day to day for citizens in some cases, and in other cases it’s going to help businesses to come to Holbrook and by doing it the way we’re doing it here we’re avoiding the ‘oh shoot’ moment in the future.” Vice Mayor Francie Payne also addressed the public with her thoughts on why she believes this is a necessary change despite her initial skepticism and offered her apologies echoing part of Marsh’s sentiment, “I’ve been in to talk to the manager several times on this and it took a long time to get it through my thick head but this is a result of leaving it where it shouldn’t be too long. I’m grateful that we can get this done and get it behind us and I’m sorry for the folks who are going to get hit very hard and I would hope that we can figure out ways at least individually, some organizations in town to help out some of these people. There’s a lot of areas that there’s help available in for utilities. It’s just unavoidable at this point. And so I appreciate the manager’s patience with me and I’m behind it now even though I kicked and fought all the way.” Regarding transfer site fees being increased, Councilman Mike Nilsson noted, “We increase these fees, wildcat dumping is going to increase in the deserts around here and we have to be careful of that. I think we need to make opportunities for people to have a free dump day like we used to. We need to be mindful as people clean up their properties, they have a place to go. A pick-up holds four yards, when you look at the fee schedule for a pickup, people don’t think about, it’s $24 a pickup for someone to clean up their yard. I think we need to be really mindful and careful that we don’t create an eyesore because people think, why am I going to clean it up, I can’t afford this.” Soltis responded by explaining that green waste will still be free to dispose of and that the gates at the treatment plant will now remain open so people can come and go freely to dispose of the green waste. He also informed Councilman Nilsson that the city will be offering the same voucher it did last year to alleviate some of the financial burden. Soltis offered, “We do have a coupon, and that coupon is good for anytime to get a discount at the transfer station. We have some things in place to minimize that wildcat dumping.” In other business, the council approved the purchase of 12 new golf carts for the Hidden Cove Golf Course at a cost of $47,737, as well as the purchase of a mower for $15,692 for the parks department. The council also approved the purchase of a backhoe for $103,496, as there are only three of the five currently working. Following the adoption of the 2020-21 fiscal budget in the amount of $9.2 million, councilmembers expressed their appreciation to city staff for the work put in to correcting the budget and modifying the way the budget is presented.
