City Council made right call on SDCs

The Baker City Council was wise to delay its discussion about possibly adding system development charges to the list of fees it assesses to people who build new homes or commercial structures.

SDCs are, potentially, a big deal — based on a consultant’s report, the charges could add more than $14,000 to the cost of building a home.

SDCs could be a crucial source of money for the improvements city officials hope to make to the water, sewer and street systems — or, in the case of the sewer system, might be forced to make.

More than half of Oregon’s 240 incorporated cities charge SDCs. Baker City never has done so.

Considering all that’s at stake, then, councilors shouldn’t be in a hurry to make a decision.

So far they haven’t been.

Councilors first broached the subject of SDCs more than two years ago, at the behest of then-Mayor Charles Hofmann and then-City Manager Jerry Gillham.

Early this year the Council hired the consultant, who just recently finished his report.

SDCs were on the Council’s agenda for its Oct. 28 meeting. Councilors decided during that meeting to postpone further discussion until early 2009, when the new councilors who were elected Tuesday —  Aletha Bonebrake, Clair Button and Milo Pope— are sworn in.

Postponement was the Council’s only logical option.

For one thing, the city is still working on a plan that will help determine how much the city might charge for one SDC category — stormwater. That plan is supposed to be written next year.

Moreover, there isn’t time enough left in 2008 for the Council to schedule all the public hearings required before councilors could even consider making a final decision about SDCs.

The sensible choice is the one councilors made: to wait until the new Council convenes in January, then let that group of seven start its consideration of SDCs, as it were, on the same page.

We urge the Council to invest as much time as it needs to ensure that citizens get the chance to say what they think about SDCs.