Opportunity Cost:
1. The cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action. Put another way, the benefits you could have received by taking an alternative action.
Investopedia
----
New Albany’s City Council last night voted to increase the sewer rate 8%. Your cost, however, will be much greater. In terms of pure dollars, the average sewer bill will increase around 81 cents per year for three years, roughly totaling $2.50 when fully realized. Economic development moneys pledged to the sewer utility, however, will cost each user $4.20 per month. In other words, the average user is out $6.70 a month.
Readers will note that NAC has pointed out that a full 19% rate increase as originally proposed would’ve cost the average user a little over $6.00 per month with no EDIT expenditure. With a much smaller suggested EDIT pledge of $275,000 for five years, users would have spent about $7.15 per month total.
For the amount of EDIT money pledged to save citizens less than half a dollar a month, the city could have totally paid off its portion of the Scribner Place project, turned Market, Spring, and Elm back to two-way streets, and fully funded a code enforcement regime for a number of years. Alternatively, we could have purchased and rehabbed several downtown buildings, provided low interest small business loans and other financial incentives, or built a technology infrastructure downtown to better facilitate the service based businesses that dominate today’s economy.
Instead, meeting attendees were treated to a prewritten statement by CM Bill Schmidt detailing his plan of spending even more EDIT funds on sewers to the tune of $25 million. His reasoning was that, since we were already spending a large sum of EDIT funds on the jail each year, we wouldn’t miss it. Coffey continued his doublespeak assault on the past, insisting at one point that certain parking lots that were supposed to be repaired after sewer work were not, even though he went on to critique the methodology used to repair them. And yes, Price again returned to the home finance paradigm, insisting that one shouldn’t borrow money to pay off one’s debts while conveniently failing to mention the consequences of not generating the funds to pay one’s debts at all, as he has continually advocated.
These uneducated, unprofessional and unimaginative men are simply grasping at whatever straws they find convenient owing to their inability to articulate even a partial vision of what New Albany could and should be. For years, Coffey has stated that things will never get better until we attract a factory to town. While mountains of economic evidence suggest that manufacturing jobs are probably not the wisest of investments these days, suffice it to say that in almost seven years on the Council, Coffey has yet to make suggestion one as to how to attract that mythical factory.
For all the blather that our city government has put forth in the past few years, not a single elected official has produced even an inkling of an economic development plan. Most have simply rehashed our failures and voted to subsidize them with the very tax dollars meant to correct them. We are a welfare state with no commonweal and a citizenry who, thus far, lacks sufficient interest in pursuing one.
If you have a different vision, please share it. We’ve got about 45 cents each a month to pay for it.
Courier-Journal coverage from Matt Batcheldor:
New Albany sewer bills to rise 8%
Tribune coverage from Eric Scott Campbell
New Albany's sewer rate rises
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Are you kidding me? I think the 8% increase is a cowardly decision and an ill-fated attempt to throw more money down the “sewer,” literally and figuratively. The very people that keep making these stupid, illogical decisions keep this town from reaching its potential. Instead of standing up and doing the right thing (19% increase) for the future of the city, the people that voted for the 8% increase have now “tied the hands” of the city from using the EDIT money in the future for something more productive and beneficial to the community as a whole. In addition, the sewer still needs to be fixed. How is this going to solve anything? I would rather pay now and see our community flourish in the near future than save a couple of bucks and watch as the community continues to flounder for years to come.
The funny part is that at some point down the road, I don’t know, maybe three to five years down the road; it will be Mayor Garner who will get the blame for this (whether he is in office or not). Not that I am jumping on the mayor’s band wagon or anything, but in the short year and a half that I have lived in this community, I am seeing an obvious pattern by certain council members. First, I cannot believe I am even saying this because this should have never been allowed to happen in the first place, but Coffee and Price are flat out stupid! I have never seen two people more ignorant about the facts (of just about anything, really). These officials are responsible for how we run our community. These two idiots talk about nothing! Think about it. The spin that these two generate is enough hot air to send Dorothy back to OZ! When I finally try to breakdown their reasoning, I find that it is about nothing. They contradict themselves on a regular basis, cannot argue logically about anything, and furthermore, lie about having their constituent’s best interest at hand. Instead, it is about living in the past, focusing on what should have been or could have been. For them, it is not about their constituents, but about their own agenda. Ironically, I don’t think they even understand their own agenda. It is about plausible deniability. In other words, sitting back and talking about nothing all the while doing nothing in the event that something should happen. Then, they can blame somebody else for the entire nothing that took place.
Good leaders surround themselves with people that understand the various tasks and can make competent decisions in relations to those tasks. The council has heard, and in some cases repeatedly heard, by officials whose business it is to understand the task concerning the sewer and all the monies and bond issues surrounding the sewer. To pretend as if they understand the situation is silly! From what I understand, they do not even read the materials given to them prior to the meetings to make informed decisions. How intelligent is that?
WAKE UP PEOPLE! It is way past time for a change!
Don't forget...in just 16 months we can repeal this insanity and put the utility on a self-sustaining path.
Very true. A willingness to do just that will be somewhat of a litmus test for any candidates.
It's unfortunate that a new council will immediately have to burden itself with this sewer mistake but there're millions of dollars at stake. It will be important for candidates to be able to explain how the money could be better used.
off topic, but I can't say anything that hasn't already been said. They are pissing the money for any type of "moving forward" (since the word progress seems to throw so many people off) away, and the stubborness and ignorance is beyond frustrating.
Anyway, don't forget that an informative meeting for citizens of downtown NA is scheduled for tomorrow at 7 at the Calumet Club, sponsored by all the neighborhood associations and groups in downtown.
Hope to see everyone there!
Post a Comment