On November 2, 2010, Corvallis voters will elect a Mayor and nine nonpartisan City Councilors to the City Council.

The Mayor will be elected citywide and serve a four-year term from January 2011 to December 2014.

The nine City Councilors will be elected individually from the nine Wards and serve a two-year term from January 2011 to December 2012.

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Committee recommends three of five sustainability fees

Ward 1 Councilor Mark O’Brien and Ward 9 Councilor Hal Brauner went toe-to-toe over the city’s proposal to tax Corvallis residents on their utility bills to pay for sustainability programs.

New fees are being considered to improve bus service, sidewalk maintenance, bicycle and pedestrian facilities and for projects that reduce energy use or increase the use of renewable power. The City Council’s Administrative Services Committee discussed the plans Wednesday afternoon.

For O’Brien and Brauner, the decision on each of the five initiatives came down to whether benefits outweighed the pressure of difficult economic times.

“I’d like to live in a town that can afford all these programs, but I don’t,” said O’Brien, who opposed all of the initiatives. “I think these will do damage to the credibility of the council and I think it’ll make it difficult to go to the citizens for funding programs that are of value.”

Brauner, who argued in favor of most of the fees, disagreed.

“I think these are initiatives that are valued by the citizens,” he said. “I think part of the reason Corvallis is unique and can have our level of economic development is programs like these that make Corvallis the kind of place people want to live.”

The committee ultimately recommended the Council approve three of the five fees, including bus service, sidewalk maintenance and bicycle and pedestrian facilities.

The initiatives are the work of the Energy Strategy Committee, a group formed to craft city programs that would aid in meeting goals laid out by the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition. That group created a list of more than 300 action items in 12 topic areas after a series of town hall meetings in 2008.

Brauner recommended that the transit fee, which would replace property tax funding for bus service and make it free to ride the bus in town, be tied to the price of gasoline. As proposed, the base rate per household would be $2.75 a month or the average price of gasoline for the previous year, whichever is higher.

Property tax money is allotted each year for bus service, but is not dedicated to it. In tough budget years like this one — when the city faces having to trim $2.4 million in expenditures — transit funding could be re-routed to other services, such as police and fire.

But O’Brien argued that no evidence exists that more people would use the bus if it was free, nor would replacing transit funds with fees reduce the property tax bill in Corvallis.

Sidewalk maintenance fees would undo current city rules requiring property owners to maintain sidewalks along their property that are often broken by wear, frost heaves or expanding tree roots.

Brauner and O’Brien agreed that plans to create an energy resource center were unformed and also voted down a fee to pay for the city’s urban forestry plan following a city park commission’s recommendation against the plan at this time.

Ward 6 Councilor Joel Hirsch, however, voted in favor of all five fees and said economic conditions weren’t a factor in his decision.

“In terms of the arguments about timing, there will never be a good time,” he said. “I support these things and I support them all and I’m disappointed they did not all pass in committee.”

The full Council will take up the fees at its May 17 meeting.