Protest Your Drainage Fee Via the World's Most Boring How-To Video

Worse, they involve watching the above, five and a half minutes of instruction on how to use the "You think you can do better" tool to DIY your own estimate of what your fee should be.

It all comes down to how much "impervious surface" you have on your property.

The city's definition: "Impervious surface is the portion of a property that is covered by a house, garage, driveway, sidewalk, deck, swimming pool or other structures that will impact the City's drainage conveyance system."

Although the fine print laid out how much the fee would be, the estimate used in ads and voter information for the referendum was done via a property example smaller than a lot of people have. So there was some surprise when the "$5 or $6 a month" touted in the ads turned into double or triple that in assessments.

Mayor Annise Parker exempted the first 1,000 square feet to try to assuage critics.