[Mpls] Stormwater - a clarification

[ABerget at aol.com]

Tonight I received an email from John McLean, the City stormwater point  man. 
He had seen my earlier post and wrote to address two points that I had  made:
 
1) I had erroneously reported that the size of the statistical sample on  
which the average impermeable area measurement was based. The sample size was  
660 randomly selected properties, not 220 as I had written earlier. I apologize: 
 The error was mine. The statistical minds among you know better than I if 
660  out of 75,000 is a sufficient number of samples to provide a defensible  
figure.
 
2) I wrote that "the City hurried to adopt this strategy for  raising $30M in 
order to avoid a lawsuit." McLean does not dispute that the  amount raised is 
$30M, but he clarifies: "Second, regarding  the City’s motivation for seeking 
potential changes to how we charge for  stormwater services.  It is true that 
there was active litigation when the  City initiated a study to look at 
changing the way we collect revenue for  stormwater services.  However, the 
Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled (in  December 2003) that the City did not need to 
change the way it collected  stormwater revenue.  The City continued its study  
because it wanted to find a way to more equitably and accurately charge  
customers for stormwater services."
 
I  still say that the absence of progressivity for properties with more than  
1578 sq. ft. of impermeable surface per lot (also with no regard to lot size 
at  all for residences) places undue burden for this "improvement" on owners 
of  smaller properties to the obvious benefit of owners of supersized 
residential  property. McLean stated that the size of the "average" impermeable surface 
 on a city lot is 1530 sq. ft. That said, then nearly half of the 75,000  
residential properties - all larger ones - benefit from the size factor being  
capped at 1578 sq. ft. and the burden does truly fall on the little  guys.
 
I  apologize for misstating the sample size.
 
Ann  Berget
Kingfield 8-6