GREEN: Mayor Dick Norton is challenging his administration, staff and City Council to make Green the region’s model for storm-water management.His challenge came after a lengthy session last week when residents, plagued by flooding across the city,— showed photos and asked for help in solving storm-water problems that they say have languished for years.“I’m challenging our staff and council to think differently about storm water,” Norton said as council neared the end of its regular meeting Tuesday night. “[Storm water] is an age-old problem. Every city and township across the country has this [issue].”Norton said Green has built a reputation as a great place to live by developing and keeping businesses, having great schools and the airport, and collaborating.“We have become a model for all that, and we also have become a model for effective and efficient government,” he said. “But I would argue that we are not yet a model for how we handle storm water. In fact, I’d argue that there isn’t one. I haven’t seen one that I admire.”And then, Norton issued his challenge.“Why don’t we be that model? How do we do it?” he asked “And since we do all these other things so well, we seem to have the talent and get-up-and-go to do it. So let’s just bear down a bit and figure it out how to be that model.”Norton compared the storm-water problem to fighting a war.“You have to fight and win the war, but there are a whole series of battles. So we are going to continue to fight battles and create an end goal with what we want to accomplish when the war’s over,” he said. “And that really is to have a very effective, efficient [system] — and in a perfect world have no homeowners flooded.”Council approved $150,000 to launch the storm-water fight through some immediate relief after Engineer Paul Pickett listed several projects that could be done in the short term to assist residents. Longer-term solutions would not start until next year, he said.Pickett said he and Service Director Randy Monteith listed several areas where work could begin in about four weeks to clean out channels and replace drain pipes with larger ones. He said some of the channel work could be done before next spring’s rains.Melanie Drive resident Laraine Prewitt questioned the speed at which the city has moved on storm-water problems. She suggested Green consider no-interest loans to flooding victims to repair or replace damaged possessions.Law Director Stephen Pruneski said the city has no power to make such loans.Also suggested was waiting to do storm-water work on a portion of Lauby Road, where there aren’t any homes, and using that money in areas of the city where houses are affected.Councilwoman-at-Large Lynda Smole said it seems “we’re just trying to find a bigger Band-Aid to correct an old problem.”