Corpus Christi City Manager Peter Zanoni tells 3NEWS that utility rate fees are going to go up this year for probably residential, commercial, and even big industry, and that's simply because the price of everything has skyrocketed.
"What we do know is, the cost to run our system, the cost for labor, the cost for chemicals, cost for materials -- like pipes -- cost for things like vehicles has all gone up,” he said. “Everybody knows that we've seen shocking inflation that hasn't come back down to where it was years ago. Our rate adjustments are every two years."
The city manager gave another example of sticker shock -- the price of chlorine.
"The cost of chlorine has more than doubled since a year ago,” he said. “So if we were spending a million dollars for chlorine, we are now spending two million and that price is not coming down, industry experts tell us."
Dist. 5 city councilman Gil Hernandez mentioned our news story on this issue Monday night -- that's when we found out that if council passed several ordinances on Tuesday, that Corpus Christi’s overall city debt would jump up to $1.4 billion.
Those ordinances would allow the city to issue revenue bonds and certificates of obligation -- something councilman Roland Barrera was all for.
"This is just to be able to obtain favorable financing at this time,” he said.
Interim city of Corpus Christi Finance Director Alma Casas went before council Tuesday to explain how revenue bonds would pay for capital-improvement projects through low-cost loans. Those dollars would, for example, help pay for upgrades and improvements to our wastewater, water, and gas systems without any effect on our future utility rates.
"Right now, these bonds that are going to be issued, there is no rate increase," she said.
In the end, council passed the bond measures, moving our total debt to $1.4 billion.
Several council members also had questions about using certificates of obligation to pay for cost overruns for several city projects, including the construction of the new police academy.
This caused frustration for Dist. 1 councilman Everett Roy.
“Let's shut the police academy down, you know?” he said. “Let's stop. Let's go ahead and pull the bulldozers.”
The Corpus Christi Police Department’s new police academy is under construction along Yorktown Boulevard, right next door to the Del Mar Oso Creek Campus.
But because of rising construction costs, the city had to come up with another $6.3 million to keep the project moving forward. In order to do that, council voted to issue certificates of obligation, to the delight of CCPD chief Mike Markle.
“It's long overdue,” he said. “It's a wonderful project, yeah, and I was listening to the comments, but the council all support the new training academy. There's no doubt there. They are all very supportive of public safety.”
Markle said the academy should be completed sometime later next year.