Rethinking Stupid
It’s good to see that the Jefferson County Commission is rethinking its incredibly short-sighted decision to pull out of the Storm Water Management Authority. The Business Alliance for “Responsible” Development managed to pull the wool over the eyes of a majority of Commissioners last year, as well as the leadership of numerous cities in the Birmingham area.
Two Jefferson County commissioners are among officials having second thoughts about their decision to leave the regional cooperative that regulates storm water runoff, the Jefferson County Storm Water Management Authority. The commission voted in January to set up its own storm water program, saying the county could do the work cheaper than SWMA.
At the urging of a group formed by developers and corporate landowners, the Business Alliance for Responsible Development, about a half-dozen cities also voted to pull out of SWMA. However, one of those cities, Homewood, later decided that going out on its own was more cumbersome and expensive than it thought and voted to rejoin SWMA.
Now Jefferson County officials are considering rejoining SWMA, saying questions remain about whether the county can get its program up and running by the fall and at less cost than SWMA.
All this because SWMA had the gall to raise its fees for the first time in ten years. BARD was quick to take advantage of the — dare I say it — stupidity of some elected officials to encourage them to break away from an agency that has been very effective at performing its stated function. I can’t imagine why developers would want to weaken this particular agency, can you?
To set up its own system, the county has to assume responsibility for meeting federal requirements meant to keep runoff from storm sewers, roads and development from fouling area waterways. That means getting permits, issuing regulations, doing water sample tests, even conducting public education.
Now, all that is done by SWMA for the county and 26 member cities. But when SWMA proposed raising its fee from $5 a year per home to $12 a year - its first increase in 10 years - BARD told the county and the cities they could do it themselves for less, and the county and a handful of cities fell for it.
I’m heartened to see that county and city officials can admit they got snookered and need to reconsider a really poor decision.
It’s silly to think that 27 governments, with the unavoidable duplication that would follow, can do the water monitoring more efficiently than one agency.
It’s not too late, though, for the county and those cities to rejoin SWMA. There’s also no good reason not to do so.
Now if we can just get the County Commission to revisit its ridiculous and potentially harmful decision to overrule its own Planning and Zoning Board and adopt a BARD-sponsored flood plain ordinance. Given the craziness that has gone on at some recent meetings, I’m not holding my breath.
March 26th, 2007 at 11:55 am
I find it interesting that BARD dollars started flowing into the campaign coffers of Jim Carns and Bobby Humphryes AFTER they won their primaries. Before that Humphryes’ opponant Ann Goolsby was the recepient of developer dollars. And Gary White– did BARD really think he was going to win? I still think that the Democrats could’ve run almost anybody and won White’s commission seat!