By Robert Medley
Managing Editor
A $10 monthly road maintenance charge on Piedmont utility bills that was set to expire in this month has been extended until July 1, 2024.
The Piedmont City Council voted Monday night, Dec. 18, to keep charging the fee through the rest of the fiscal year.
City Manager Josh Williams also proposed raising the fee $3 to $13 a month for Piedmont utility customers. Raising the fee would generate more funds for the much-needed road work in the growing city, where there are complaints about oil pad sites leaving mud on roads and four-way stops at intersections are debated as traffic counts increase.
The fee charged on utility bills now raises $300,000 a year for road maintenance.
Although Piedmont city council members voted unanimously Monday night to keep the fee in place, they will take another look at it in June.
City Manager Williams wrote in a memo to city council members that a $3 increase to the road maintenance fee would generate between $390,00 and $468,000 a year.
The $10 monthly fee generates $250,000 to $300,000 a year, he reported.
“That directly, as required by law, goes to the maintenance and repair of our roads,” Williams wrote.
The fee is critical to the city’s ability to provide such service, Williams wrote.
“Consideration of raising the fee would be timely due to the increased and rising cost of materials since 2019 when the fee was last resolved,” Williams wrote. “An increase would allow us to further achieve the citizen’s desire for a better roads and roads system.”
Williams also wrote that he is proud of the ongoing work of the road crews of the city and that there are future projects on the horizon to “improve roads and increase the quality of life for our residents and visitors. This has been and will continue to be possible through this resolution,” Williams wrote.
Mayor Kurt Mayabb told council members during the Dec. 18 meeting that he thought the fee should sunset or expire for now.
“It rolls off if we don’t do anything today,” Mayabb said about the fee. “And technically, if we want to as a council, we could do it by year or we can do it with another sunset in five years. That is all I had to say about it,” Mayabb said.
“I would like to see the fee go away for a while because of where our citizens are listening to them on their trash bills. The other side of me says, ‘You know what? Just the same amount of people calls me and complain about the road. And so, we need the money to fix the road,” Mayabb said.
City Councilman Ron Cardwell, who represents Ward 2, said five months into this fiscal year the city had collected $209,000 from the fee and spent $247,000 on road maintenance. More money is needed for rock on Sara Road and other roads, for example, he said. He said that adding $3 on top of $10 is a 30% increase.
“But the materials and the cost of doing things and everything has gone up,” Cardwell said.
Councilman Byron Schlomach said he knows people have been offended by the fee, but that the fee is not going away in Piedmont, a bedroom community.
“With the state of roads and other parts of our infrastructure, I don’t see how we can get rid of the fee,” Schlomach said, who represents Ward 5. ”We can’t get rid of the fee, but on the other hand I would not vote on an indefinite fee.”
Cardwell told council members, “We still have a pressing need to maintain the roads. I would like to move that the fee be extended to the end of the fiscal year, June 30, and to be evaluated before the beginning of the 2024-2025 fiscal year that starts July 1.
Councilmembers voted unanimously to extend the current $10 fee to June 30.
In an unrelated action taken by the council Monday, an ordinance was approved by the council that requires residents to be notified 30 days before any increase to their utility bills. The ordinance was proposed by Councilman Jonathan Hisey, Ward 4. The council members unanimously approved the ordinance.
