Seattle City Council member Tom Rasmussen, while meeting with the Stranger Election Control Board this afternoon, predicted that “hundreds of million of dollars” in water, sewage, garbage, and electricity rates over in the next few years would be committed to the Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Project, indicating the total utility bill could reach a half-billion dollars for city ratepayers.
While Rasmussen indicated there would be an “increase” in rates and he was unclear whether the city would need to bond against future revenues to cover the work, the city has previously raised rates that will contribute to the city’s end of the project. It’s unclear what additional rate increases Rasmussen predicts.
“I think when we put together a funding package, we need to be aware of what sort of increase that means to all of us,” Rasmussen said.
The subject came up when we asked Rasmussen, chair of the council’s transportation committee, where the city would get the $930 million required for Seattle’s portion of the Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Project. Rasmussen said a ballot measure would likely seek $300 million in property taxes to replace the seawall, that $100 million has been largely secured for the Mercer West Project, and that the rest would come from utilities. That would be $500 million, though Rasmussen would only confirm “hundreds of millions.” Asked if he had more specifics about the total bill, Rasmussen said, “Nope.” Asked if he had a more specific timeline for raising rates, he said, “I have no idea.” Asked if it would be paid all at once or bonded, he also didn’t “quite know.”
In addition, Rasmussen foresees additional utility rate hikes for inflation and for other major projects, including an electrical substation.
Divided among Seattle population of 608,660, a half-billion dollar bill would average $821 per person (obviously this is an imperfect metric—lots of nonresident utility payers would also shoulder the cost). That would cover waterfront utility relocation and some street work associated with tearing down the viaduct, which is slated to be complete by 2018.
This post updated with information about to the council’s past approval for utility rate hikes that would help fund the viaduct project—which Rasmussen did not mention—that would likely offset any future rate increases.
Why not just cancel the Tunnel We Can’t Afford instead?
$800 is about a 30% increase for my yearly utility bills. that would suck balls, but it would probably bring us in line with the rest of Murka.
Can unlicensed people get some sort of rebate? Intercity gas tax instead?
This is nasty nasty lamesauce.
$821 a year, or spread over a number of years?
@2, that’s if it were all billed in one year. As Dominic’s post indicated, it might well be drawn over the course of several years, or bonded, or whatnot. Back of envelope stuff at this point, sounds like. Glad to hear someone’s given it a bit of thought at least.
Is Waste Management owned by the City or just getting in on some healthy profits? This is a bullshit threat.
WOW! You can say that again!!!
Utility usage/cost is not even close to being divided equally among the Seattle “population”!
[Think maybe some of our manufacturing & industry, like, say — the ALCOA aluminum smelting plant in South Seattle — might be using just a tad higher amount of electricity (& hence footing a larger portion of that cost increase) than your average, run-of-the-mill residential family home might?
Just a tad…? perhaps…???]
This is only the downpayment, btw.
It’s going to end up costing EVERY Seattle household – owner or renter – $10,000 total.
And that is WITHOUT the Ten Dollar Tolls each day.
Bend over …
@7 they get a reduced “industrial” rate, that last time I checked was about 1/5th what we households pay.
Very expensive “tax giveaways”, if you ask me.
Note: electricity rates in Seattle are much much lower than those in most of the USA, so it’s not like they need the “extra” subsidy.
Will – the seawall replacement and utility work are all necessary, no matter what option was done for the waterfront. Quite a bit of these costs are costs that the city already needed to pay.
If Tim Eyman can run an initiative saying that tolls can only be used for the roadway being tolled, maybe we should have an initiative saying that utility fees can only be used for, you know, providing utilities.
@9 Actually, if Seattle’s energy is that low priced, then getting rid of those discounts wouldn’t actually help much because it wouldn’t be much money to offset anything. Though, if it is that low then at the same time the companies wouldn’t mind paying the extra amount, if they are actually good companies they’ll have enough revenue to cover it.
@7, I hadn’t thought of commercial & industrial at all. Good catch.
The internets led me right to City Light’s 2010 annual report, which says their income was 31% from residential, 54% from non-residential (assume that’s a mix of industrial such as you mentioned, plus office towers and artisanal ice-cream freezers and Index Newspapers LLC servers and such…) and the rest from what looks like energy trading and miscellany. All while remaining the only greenhouse-gas-neutral utility in the country, which it says it has been for six years – since the Nickels era. (Well done, Catalina!)
Of course, just because the majority of income is from non-residential, mightn’t rate increases wind up sort of a horsetrading mishmash anyway, with businesses trying to cajole a lower percentage allocation? But then again, the report’s auditors also said the ratings on City Light bonds remained high, so maybe that will be a good way to go, if investors are as eager to buy bonds by the time we get around to issuing any.
http://www.seattle.gov/light/aboutus/Ann…
#10: Except that viaduct utility relocation costs were included in the 2005 state 9.5 cent gas tax. Only in January 2009 did Greg Nickels agree for the city to pay $940 million for viaduct replacement, including utility relocation, ONLY if the deep bore tunnel was selected.
The tunnel is the only reason the city is paying for this.
The good news is these are all basically asset taxes…spread out according to goods and property owned.
Will, dear, don’t try to talk about electrical rates. It makes you look foolish.
Thank you, Gus sweetness, although I’m just an electrical hostess. I had nothing to do with it.
And just to clear things up a bit, the proposed substation has absolutely nothing, whatsoever, in any way, to do with the viaduct.
But I don’t like the sound of this. J.D. Ross would be appalled.
It’s spelled “foresees”…that is all.
“Imperfect” doesn’t begin to describe this alleged “metric…”
What @14 said.
I pay twice what you do for electricity – participate in both the Green Power and Green Up programs.
I was running hydro dams and power turbines before you were in diapers.
Will dear, those are volunterr programs. Everyone pays the same residential rate in Seattle.
And if what you say about operating dams is true, that would explain a lot. After all, prior to automation – which began when I was just a few years out of diapers – a lot of dam operators were exposed to high levels of EMF, and one of the adverse health effects of that is thought to be dementia.