A new drainage fee could appear on Brownsville, Texas, utility bills as the city establishes a dedicated funding system to reduce flooding.<\/p>\n
Commissioners approved creating the drainage utility, but customers’ rates still need to be set before the city’s expected January start.<\/p>\n
Here’s what to know<\/p>\n
During a special meeting on Oct. 7, Brownsville commissioners authorized a city drainage utility to support stormwater and drainage work throughout Brownsville. As ValleyCentral reported<\/a>, officials approved the utility, but not the fee tied to it.<\/p>\n For now, Brownsville utility customers still do not know how much the new drainage charge would be. A future city council meeting is expected to address both the service framework and the fee that would pay for it.<\/p>\n City Manager Alan Guard said the city has been working with the Brownsville Public Utility Board on a plan to end the current resaca fee and replace it with dedicated funding for stormwater and drainage work across Brownsville.<\/p>\n If the city approves that billing change, drainage and flood-control work would be funded through a citywide revenue stream instead of remaining tied to the existing resaca-related fee.<\/p>\n Before any further action, the Brownsville City Commission has also discussed holding a town hall to explain the utility system and possible fees to residents.<\/p>\n What’s being done?<\/p>\n The vote at the special meeting formally created the drainage utility Brownsville plans to use for stormwater service and flood prevention.<\/p>\n Guard said the city and the Brownsville Public Utility Board are working together on replacing the current resaca fee with a dedicated funding source for stormwater and drainage work across Brownsville.<\/p>\n A future city council meeting is expected to outline how the utility would operate and set the drainage fee.<\/p>\n First, city leaders want more public outreach.<\/p>\n “The commission asked us to do a little more community engagement. A little more community education for awareness,” said Guard.<\/p>\n Get TCD’s free newsletters<\/a> for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new drainage fee could appear on Brownsville, Texas, utility bills as the city establishes a dedicated funding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-471445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}