Published: May 13, 2008 03:14 am            

CITY OF LOCKPORT: Legislators again target water line tax

Two Lockport-based county legislators will try again to persuade Niagara County to stop taxing the city’s raw water line.

Legislators Tony Nemi and Keith McNall plan to introduce legislation next week that would have the county fully forgive property tax on the line that carries water into the City of Lockport from the Niagara River at North Tonawanda.

If a legislative majority agrees, McNall and Nemi said Monday, substantial savings for the city would come at a minimal cost to the county at large.

The county received $51,086 in tax from the city water fund last year. If the tax were forgiven — and the amount were redistributed among all county taxpayers — the impact would be less than 1 cent per $1,000 of assessed value, according to McNall.

“That’s a very small impact on county tax and a very big impact on the city,” he said.

Taxes on the raw water line are a sore subject in the city of Lockport, the county seat where county-held properties are not taxed by the city. The line carries raw water from the Niagara River to the filtration plant on Summit Street, and there’s no other way to get water in.

The 13-mile line runs through multiple municipalities that all put assessed value on the line and land around it. Then, the City of North Tonawanda, the towns of Wheatfield and Pendleton, the Starpoint and Niagara Wheatfield school districts and Niagara County all tax pieces of it.

In 2006, the city paid about $260,000 in taxes on the line, roughly 7 percent of the water fund budget and, city officials say, a major overhead expense.

Past Lockport legislators, both a Republican and a Democrat, tried three times since 2005 to get the county to scrap its tax on the line, to no avail as legislators from North Tonawanda and towns belonging to the county water district shot down a favor for one municipality and/or the notion that the county should help rescue the city’s troubled distribution system.

As recently as three years ago the city’s water loss rate, due to line breaks within the in-city network, was estimated to be as high as 40 percent. Legislators including Gerald Farnham, R-Pendleton, suggested the city should control water costs by plugging leaks rather than plead for a tax favor.

The legislation that Nemi is authoring, and that McNall will co-sponsor, proposes a trade of sorts. If the city receives county tax forgiveness, it would have to put the saved money into a dedicated account used only for repair or replacement of bad lines.

Nemi thinks the condition might make the difference for leery non-city legislators.

“Part of the concern was that if the city did get a break, it should go to correcting infrastructure, nothing else,” he said. “There are some in the legislature who think the city should just come around to the county (water district) and join with it.”

Mayor Michael Tucker may bristle inwardly at a county attempt to manage the city but he said he’ll live with the condition.

“Listen, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I’ll leave it at that,” he said. “I’m appreciative.”

The city’s water loss rate has declined, dramatically, since the eye-popping 40 percent estimate was reported a few years ago. Thanks to an aggressive tracking effort by city water workers, smaller leaks were ferreted out and fixed and the department graphed a loss rate of 10 percent as of last fall. The track-and-repair effort is ongoing, Common Council water and sewer committee chairman Patrick Schrader said, so the rate still should be no more than 10 to 15 percent.

Nemi recognizes legislators outside Lockport don’t have to sympathize with the city’s tax gripe, since the solution involves their constituents covering the loss and not getting anything for it. In party caucus sessions and one-on-one lobbying, he said, he’s appealing to them not to view his bill so narrowly.

“If everybody takes a turn at giving back, where it doesn’t directly benefit you, down the road your turn comes,” Nemi said. “Everybody needs a break somewhere down the line.”

The city’s lawsuits against North Tonawanda and the towns of Wheatfield and Pendleton, filed in 2006 to force down their assessments on the raw water line, remain in progress. The sides currently are working on obtaining commercial appraisals, City Attorney John Ottaviano said.

Contact reporter Joyce Miles at 439-9222, ext. 6245.

        

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