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Home My WebLink AboutLID 4701-0011 Joshua Perry & City Clerk Correspondence Deborah Lovejoy From:Deborah Lovejoy Sent:Wednesday, September 26, 2018 1:15 PM To:'Joshua M Perry' Subject:RE: Local Improvement District No. 47 Hearing Hi Joshua, At the Public Hearing on October 3, 2018, this correspondence and the documentation will be submitted to the City Council for review, I’m unable to make the decision as far as the costs and repairs undertaken for the assessment. I would like to assure you that the repairs to the infrastructure are based on a schedule that addresses the greatest areas of necessity. This street now has new waterlines, sewer lines, storm drain, road, curb, gutter, and areas of sidewalk. When a project of this size and expense is undertaken, we want to make sure we replace aging infrastructure so we don’t incur more expense by cutting into a new road to replace a water line or sewer line that has failed. This takes a large toll on the life of the road, and replacement comes much sooner on a road that has been patched due to poor planning as opposed to doing it right the first time. This philosophy has helped us save a significant amount of money in the long run which is helpful on a budget that is stretched every year to keep up with the demand of streets in great need of replacement/repair. This is a link on our website concerning LIDs. http://www.rexburg.org/pages/lid Sincerely, Deborah Lovejoy Rexburg City Clerk st 35 N 1 E Rexburg, ID 83440 Phone: (208) 372-2101 Fax: (877) 397-8137 From: Joshua M Perry \[mailto:byuiproject@gmail.com\] Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 8:30 PM To: Deborah Lovejoy Subject: Re: Local Improvement District No. 47 Hearing Hi Deborah, I am not at that address. All of my city information is sent to 126 Fenceline Dr. San Marcos TX 78666 and has been for the last 5 years. If you could look at all of my communications, you will see that. In fact, the notice about the hearing was sent to the 126 address. All of my city bills and everything are sent to the 126 address. That is why I never received the notice. I had my address updated, but somehow it went to the wrong place. Is there anything I can do? As I said, I believe these costs are a bit high. It is hard when you do not receive the notification, except a year later for a random large bill because your street was randomly selected to be worked on. Again, if this is truly being enforced, the leaders or ones asking for the money should be in compliance as well. The city engineer stated he knows he is out of compliance, however they are not doing road work updates on his street so apparently it is ok not to worry about it. This seems a bit hypocritical. I do not want this to come out in an attacking way, just simply stating the facts. It also seems strange to say we will require updates no 1 matter the size of the crack whether it be really small or really large as long as there are two we will require ripping things out and replacing them. Thank you for sending the letter. Even looking at the original letter it is a little concerning because it is not saying specifically what needs to be updated. Instead, it used a blanket statement of we expect updates on: "the installation and/or replacement of streets, curbs, gutters, sidewalks, driveway approaches, water lines, sanitary sewer lines, storm sewer lines, retaining walls and other improvements as necessary, together with related improvements and costs of engineering, legal services, publication, interest ...etc." When I talked to the engineer and the finance clerk they made it sound as though the letter specifically stated what needed updated and gave people the chance to update it themselves or use a third party contractor. There is no way of doing this with that broad statement. Please let me know if there is anything I can do about this. This would be a hardship for my family, which we could not really expect or do anything about. Sincerely, Josh Perry On Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 3:04 PM Deborah Lovejoy <Deborah.Lovejoy@rexburg.org> wrote: Hi Joshua, Thank you for bringing your concerns about LID 47 to our attention. I reviewed the notification letters that were sent th back in January 2017, and saw that the letter was sent to 252 S 5 W, Rexburg, ID. It appears that is the address the Madison County Tax records are sent to – which is where we gather our parcel information when Local Improvement Districts are created. We did not have the notification letter returned to us for non-delivery. I have also reviewed the breakdown of the work done on the property and have included that information for you – it is as follows: Amount ReplacedCostDiscountTotal Sidewalk 18 sq. yd. $ 765.00 $ -128.7 $ 636.30 Curb & Gutter 64 ft. $ 1,728.00 $ -647.6 $ 1,080.40 Service Sewer Line $ 1,700.00 $ 1,700.00 Engineering 12% of Cost $ 503.16 $ 503.16 Total $ 4,696.16 $ -776.3 $ 3,919.86 2 I will include your correspondence and all documentation concerning your LID 47 assessment in the City Council rd Packets for the Public Hearing to be held on October 3, 2018 for consideration. Please let me know if I can help you with any other questions or concerns. Sincerely, Deborah Lovejoy Rexburg City Clerk st 35 N 1 E Rexburg, ID 83440 Phone: (208) 372-2101 Fax: (877) 397-8137 From: Joshua M Perry \[mailto:byuiproject@gmail.com\] Sent: Monday, September 24, 2018 7:41 PM To: Deborah Lovejoy Subject: Local Improvement District No. 47 Hearing Hi Deborah, Joel Gray, the city engineer, suggested that I reached out to you to express some of my concerns. Last week, I received a letter about a hearing on October 3. The letter was full of what seemed like legaleeze and so I emailed Noah and Joel to try to understand what it was about. It turns out the city redid some side walks and gutters on my property and now would like to bill me $3,919.86. Once I found out about this, I had several concerns. 1.This is the first time I felt that I had heard anything about this. I live in Texas most of the year, and come up to Idaho a few times a year. Noah and Joel let me know that notices were sent out about a year ago. I do not believe I received any notice telling me that work had to be done or giving me any options. There was no certified letter, I did not opt into anything, and so I feel a bit confused by this. Most of the time, you would expect options or some kind of agreement, but neither took place hear. 3 2.My property did not require much work. When I look at pictures from last year, there were not that many cracks. Cracks did exist, however, they were small crack. Almost anywhere that has sidewalks or roads has some cracks (even small ones) especially due to the type of weather Rexburg has. It freezes and gets hot every year which makes things move. Joel let me know that if there were two cracks in any of it, no matter how big or small, they need to replace it. He said this was because it is likely that they may not come back for another 20 years and so they want to replace it even if it is small because of that time. This seems strange to me. If there is a small hairline fracture, are you really going to replace it every time. If so, everyone would be replacing their sidewalks ever couple of years. If we followed this with the roads, they would always be under construction. 3.To further my point I asked Joel if he had any cracks on his property side walks or gutters. He said he did, but that was because they were done 50 years ago. This seems really strange. How can you hold others accountable for this, when your property does not even follow the code? 4.I am also concerned because supposedly, they way that it is decided if you need to update your sidewalks is based on if they plan to do road work in your area. If they are, they will check your property and send you an estimate (again one that I never received). Some parts of the city will get repaired more frequently, just because they have more traffic. My property is in front of a major road, and therefore will likely get repaired more. Does that mean I should have to redo my sidewalk more than everyone else, just because they do more road construction where I live? This does not seem right or fare. Also, my property is a corner lot, and there fore you get hit twice each time this happens. 5.When I visited my property in July, I did not really notice a difference to the before vs after. This gives me a feeling for paying for nothing basically. I am sure there was work done, but it is hard for me to see that. 6.Finally, I believe I deeded part of my property off to the city. When I talked with Joel, he said it did not matter that the sidewalk and gutters and that part of the property belonged to the city, because you have a house in front of it, you are responsible for it. That seems odd to me as well. I have properties in several cities and states. Most of them do not have this kind of requirement. Instead, it is covered just like roadwork is through the city. This way we do not run into these kinds of issues. This is just a solution for the future to consider. I am not sure if anything can be done here. I know that I am in Texas, and I feel like it is a little more difficult to express my feelings here than if I were able to be there in person. I like Rexburg. I like the community, and the people. I believe most things are very fair, however, this situation seems very odd. I have a young family, and $4,000 is a lot of money for us to be asked to just pay. If I really knew about it, I could have saved or done things differently, but as I said, I do not feel as though I received any notice. There are payment plans available, which I do appreciate. Is there any way we can lower the amount. I am happy to do my part. I do not agree with everything that happened, but I am happy to try to contribute. Please let me know what I can do. Sincerely, Josh Perry 4