THROUGH MY EYES -- RON DAVIS

In 1996, Huntington Beach discovered more holes in its sewer system

than the presidential ballots in Florida this year. The city discovered

something more than dimpled or indented pipes. It discovered pipes with

holes and cracks sufficiently large enough to allow the escape of a large

volume of sewer operatives.

Between 1996 and today, the city has succeeded in slip-lining about

99% of the Downtown sewers. That’s the good news. The bad news is that

over the next 20 years, the city’s infrastructure committee has estimated

it will cost us -- that’s you and me -- about $128 million. For those of

you from Florida who have difficulty with numbers, that translates into

about $6.4 million annually.

The further bad news is in January the City Council will consider

imposing a sewer fee on the Huntington Beach property owners. If that fee

mirrors what was proposed a couple of years ago, each of us can expect to

pay just a little less that $100 a year for this service.

New council member Debbie Cook asked a very important question

regarding the repairs of the sewers at Monday’s City Council meeting. She

wanted to know why it took the city from 1996 until 1999 to begin

repairing sewers, which the city acknowledged were pouring hundreds of

thousands of gallons of raw sewage into the ground.

I refuse to believe the city didn’t act because it didn’t care. The

evidence suggests we just didn’t have the money. Imagine that! Allowing

raw sewage to leak into our soil, not just for a couple of days, but for

years, because we didn’t have the money.

That is certainly not an option for the future. Our beach and our

drinking water are far too important, so we’re going to have to pay.

But we’re not going to have to pay just because we have leaking

sewers, we’re going to have to pay because the sales tax revenue in this

city is in the same condition as our sewer system -- outdated and badly

in need of repair.

The money you and I pay in taxes and fees along with sales tax revenue

and other income goes into a big barrel called the city’s general fund.

Now imagine a barrel filed with 150 cups of water trying to satisfy the

thirst of 300 people. That’s what happens to the general fund when we

have competing demands for services. Obviously, everyone doesn’t get what

they want.

When some event occurs, like adding an extra 50 people who need to

drink from the barrel, or serious sewer leaks that must now be funded

from the general fund, either everyone has to do with less, or something

has to be added to the barrel.

Unfortunately, there is only one way to add to the barrel and that’s

by increasing revenue to the barrel. And that happens only one of two

ways. Either we dig into our own pockets in the form of higher taxes, or

we increase the sales tax revenue generated by the businesses in the city

by retaining and attracting shoppers into our city.

We don’t seem to have the will to make the tough decisions necessary

to patch the sales tax revenue pipe that leaks our sales tax revenue to

our surrounding cities. The cost for not making these tough decisions

will either come directly out of our pockets or in reduced services to

the residents. Services like the timely repair of sewer pipes.

I don’t believe for an instant approving eminent domain for the

rehabilitation of the deteriorating Huntington Center would have

eliminated this anticipated and much needed sewer fee. But, I do believe

that by digging out that decaying pipe we call a mall, and constructing a

new, state-of-the-art mall designed to capture every nickel of sales tax

revenue possible and pour it into our general fund, we would have reduced

the contribution we will all be forced to make from our wallets. The

result in my opinion will be when you dig into your pocket to pay for

these new sewer fees, you will also be digging into your pocket to pay

for the privilege of having Wards and Burlington remain at the mall.

* RON DAVIS is a private attorney who lives in Huntington Beach. He

can be reached by e-mail at o7 [email protected]