April 26, 2016

Kenai residents each billed $6,300 for paving project they didn't want

KENAI, Alaska (AP) — Property owners on a Kenai cul-de-sac are paying the bill for a paving project on their street, but the city acknowledges that the project was misconceived and was not requested by the property owners.

City administrators believed the cul-de-sac owners formed a local improvement district and requested a paving project from the city, agreeing to pay half of the project's cost split among them, The Peninsula Clarion reported. After the project, each owner was billed for about $6,300.

At the Kenai city council's March 16, some of the property owners said they only signed a petition requesting a cost estimate, and that they canceled their request for paving after seeing the price tag.

Resident Leslei Spalding said she was working on the North Slope at the time of the paving and wasn't home to receive notice of the project and contest it. Another neighbor told city councilors that she had been renting out her house and living elsewhere.

Kenai City Manager Rick Koch said at the March 16 meeting that he had never received a letter from the local improvement district asking for the petition to be discarded.

On Thursday, Koch said he later found an email from Linda Machado — the resident who initiated the petition — that said the price was too high and that the cul-de-sac no longer wanted the project. He said he didn't think the paving project should be stopped because of an email.

“Generally once you go through the process you have a public hearing, and at that time we believed all the residents had gotten notifications, and we didn't have any other comments aside from that one from Linda that came in after that fact, after the LID (local improvement district) was established,” Koch said.

On Wednesday the City Council voted to charge the nine property owners the lower rate of $2,660 without interest each. Koch said that because the residents were not given proper notice they didn't actually have a local improvement district.

“In the city's position, we could have ended up with zero. So I still think that they were reasonable,” Koch said. “... They felt that there was some burden on their shoulders, so this is what they came up with.”

Koch said the Kenai administration would change its procedures to be certain residents receive notices. Future city LID notices will have a return receipt so recipients can acknowledge being notified.

The neighbors said they were happy with the compromise, especially because a paved road is an improvement.

“(We) just talked about it and discussed it, and decided it really wasn't fair, since they (the city) already had it paved,” said Alan Dowell, one of the property owners who disputed the billing. “We could have been hard-nosed about it and stuck for the city paying for the whole deal. But we all like to think we're good people, and we are going to benefit by the paved road.”