City staff propose tiered commercial street‑light charge, doubling base fee for large sites

City staff presented a new structure for commercial street‑light, signal and pavement-marking charges that would replace the flat commercial fee with a five‑tier model tied to property size. Jeremy Gordon, a staff speaker during the utility-rate briefing, described the change: "the base rate moving forward, we would double the base the base rate from 32 to 65, and then everything is just multiplied from that 65."

Staff and the consultant AE2S showed sample bills for a restaurant, a franchise, a recreational facility, a grocery and a large 13th‑Avenue big‑box to illustrate how the tiers affect typical accounts. The presentation noted the top two tiers account for roughly 3.5% of accounts each and that those large accounts (industrial sites, school sites, dealerships, big‑box retailers) historically pay a disproportionately small share of street‑light costs under the flat rate. Staff proposed public institutions pay half of the proposed rate and provided comparative scenarios without the street‑light component to show water/reclamation impacts were more modest.