THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 24, 1995 TAG: 9508230151
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: John Pruitt
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
To hear the folks in northern Suffolk tell it, residents in the core city long have gotten services that are subsidized by their tax dollars. And now, they say, they're being asked to bear part of the cost of extending water and sewer lines to an area that will just make rich developers richer.
Their arguments - and the larger issues they raise - should be major topics of this weekend's City Council retreat, in which our elected leaders and city staffers will focus on Suffolk's problems and opportunities.
The matter of providing basic services to Suffolk residents - safe water and sanitary sewerage - has taken up countless meetings through the years. Yet, if it's any closer to resolution, you can't tell it by the sewage that boils up in some people's yards during the rainy season, by the privies that dot too many Suffolk yards or by shallow water wells that are dug too close to the privies and faulty septic tanks.
Despite all that, the discussion continues to be nothing more than a chicken-and-egg argument:
If it's to address these other issues, the city says, residents must endorse growth. And to stimulate growth, Suffolk must provide prospective industry with roads, water and sewerage - services for which some residents have pleaded for as long as they can remember.
But, some citizens counter: We've paid our taxes lo these many years, and who gets the services? Newcomers!
This already has gone on for generations, and it can go on even longer, if the council - at this retreat - doesn't address it. Its members must decide whether they truly believe public health and welfare are the very reasons for government to exist or if only the privileged few are to have their health and welfare needs met in the simple forms of safe water and flushing toilets.
It may sound simple enough, but then comes the question that no one, to this point, has been able or willing or answer: What is the council willing to impose and what are citizens willing to pay to provide these very basic services?
Will we all just continue to say how nice it would be if everybody could have safe water and sanitary sewerage? Or will we, as Councilman Curtis R. Milteer is fond of saying, bite the bullet?
Is it unreasonable to expect at least a plan from council?
And is it unreasonable to expect others, like the longtime northern Suffolk residents, to understand that the tax dollars they've paid all these years have very little to do with services received by residents of the Suffolk Taxing District?
The tax rate in the Suffolk district is $1.21 per $100 of assessed valuation; in Nansemond (including Northern Suffolk) it's $1.03. That's because of the service variance.
On top of that, people with municipal water and sewerage pay Suffolk about $2.11 for each 750 gallons of water flowing into their homes; $1.41 for each 750 gallons of water for such household routines as flushing toilets and emptying washing machines; and a $1.50 monthly meter rental.
Additionally, they pay the Hampton Roads Sanitation District $6.70 a month for the first 750 gallons of water it treats and $1.17 for increments.
These charges are because they live in a special taxing district, the very concept that is causing such a flap in northern Suffolk. If businesses like Harbourview want services, they argue, let 'em pay.
Besides, they ask, what's the difference between their neighborhoods and Westhaven Lakes, for which the council recently approved sewerage, with no pay-back plan?
It's a valid question. Perhaps the council members who found the money for that project can also come up with enough money to install sewerage in every neighborhood that lacks it. Nothing could rank as a higher achievement for this retreat. by CNB