COMMUNITY SURVEY

The city's Parks and Community Services Committee has been working diligently over the past several months to put together and distribute a "community survey" to determine citizens' views on the long-term needs for the City of Cannon Beach. This survey has been mailed to each household in the city and is available at selected locations throughout the community.

I would like to encourage each of you to participate in filling out the survey and returning it to City Hall within the next couple of weeks. Obtaining a good, representative response back from the public will help us all plan for our parks, recreational and leisure-time needs for the coming years.

ALL responses are important to us and you and your family can play an important part. Thanks for helping out.

PARKING AND PEDESTRIAN CIRCULATION MTG.

Tomorrow evening, August 14th, the City Council will host another meeting at 7:00 pm related to the Downtown Parking and Pedestrian Circulation Study. Please be advised the location for this meeting has been changed from the Surfsand to the council chambers at City Hall.

The city's consultants, Urbsworks out of Portland will present the preferred alternative plan and questions and comments will be accepted by the city council. Parking, sidewalk and wetlands issues will all be discussed. For further information and details on the latest plan, please refer to my June 28th blog and/or click "Downtown Parking and Circulation Study" on the home page of the City of Cannon Beach website.

AUGUST 8th CITY COUNCIL MEETING

After about 8 months of discussion related to water and sanitary sewer rates and the financial effect of last year's bond issue, the city council made 3 decisions that will influence our water and sewer bills.

First, the council ratified a previous decision that 50% of the debt associated with last year's sewer bond issue will be paid back from property taxes (which showed up on your last tax bill) and 50% will be paid back from an increase in sewer fees.

Second, effective September 1st, the sewer rate will be restructured which will result in no additional revenue to the city. The minimum charge, which residents pay no matter how much water they use, will increase by $1.51 per month and the consumption rate will decrease by 66 cents per every 100 cubic feet of water used.

This restructuring is being implemented to better reflect the amount of variable costs (those that increase or decrease depending on the amount of flow) versus fixed costs (those costs that stay the same no matter the amount of flow) necessary to operate the sanitary sewer system.

The final decision was that water rates will stay the same for an indefinite period of time and sewer rates will go up an additional 3.25% beginning the city's 2009 fiscal year.

In conclusion, I'd like to recognize the fine job the city's consultants, Galardi Consulting out of Portland did during the entire 8 month study as well as Joy Gannon, Director of Public Works who worked closely with them.