[Vision2020] Hawkins deal dies?

[Matt Decker]

Good job council!

From: london at moscow.com
To: vision2020 at mail-gw.fsr.net
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:39:38 -0700
CC: nchaney at moscow.com; tlamar at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Hawkins deal dies?











According to today's Tribune, the Moscow City 
Council refused to cut the water rates to the Hawkins development.  Though 
I thought the council's original decision to sell the water to this Washington 
development was foolish, selling the water at cut rates would have been even 
more ridiculous.  I applaud the council for refusing to do so......BL
----
Shopping center water deal evaporates
Moscow City council sticks to its guns on what some 
consider an exorbitant rate
By David Johnson 
Tuesday, September 16, 2008







MOSCOW - A proposed 
intergovernmental agreement that would supply Moscow city water across the state 
line to the planned Hawkins Companies shopping center in Whitman County appears 
to have all but dried up.
Members of the Moscow City Council voted unanimously 
Monday night to draft a letter to the Whitman County commissioners saying they 
won't budge on a proposed water rate of 255 percent to the development.
The decision comes on the heels of a letter from Whitman 
County Commission Chairman Michael Largent saying the city's proposed rate is 
too high. Largent also expressed concerns about Moscow's proposal for a 
governing board and request for regulatory oversight.
The debate comes because the Idaho Department of Water 
Resources required an intergovernmental agreement be struck before Idaho 
groundwater can be sold by a city to a private company in another state.
"A little bureaucracy. You got to love it. We're right in 
the middle of it," said Councilor Wayne Krauss, who spearheaded efforts to 
supply water to Hawkins through Whitman County.
Councilor Bill Lambert took umbrage with Largent for 
suggesting in a recent letter Moscow was simply trying to generate revenue 
through water sales. "To me that's a little of an arrogant statement," Lambert 
said.
But Councilor Walter Steed said Largent was right. Moscow 
wants to generate revenue by selling water at a higher rate outside city limits 
and nobody should be surprised. "That's like saying John McCain picked Sarah 
Palin to get elected. Well, no duh!" 
The councilors seemed to agree the Hawkins deal, as it 
stands now, is dead in the water. The company continues to drill wells on the 
site and install both water and sewer infrastructure. And it's doing so without 
making any contact with the various governmental entities.
"Hawkins is in the process of finishing the drilling of 
wells to service the project," Largent wrote in his Sept. 8 letter to Moscow 
City Supervisor Gary Riedner. "Once the water and sewer infrastructure is in 
place, the county, via a water district, will step in and take it over."
And by that time, Councilor John Weber said, the city's 
hope of generating revenue off the development will have evaporated. "When you 
come right down to it at this point, I don't see that they need us. I think that 
we need them."
Initially Monday night, Krauss moved the city simply 
abandon the idea of striking an intergovernmental agreement with Whitman County. 
The motion received a second, but died after Riedner said it would be better to 
draft the letter explaining the city's position. In essence, the council agreed 
to tell Largent there is room for negotiation on oversight and governing, but 
not on decreasing the water rate.
"Allow the county to react to that," Riedner said, 
"rather than for the city to put itself in jeopardy and voluntarily 
withdraw

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