The following was submitted by Kathleen Martin. Readers, feel free to discuss.
---
FRACTIOUS FRACTURED FAIRYTALES
[Recommended: Read the text below with Mr. Peabody's voice in mind.]
Today's episode: Robbin' the Hoodwinked or What's That I Smell?
Once upon a time, very recently in fact, a wealthy landlord purchased a sizable piece of property. It included a big house in front, which he leased to a college fraternity (henceforth the FRATS), with a cozy guest cottage behind just right for the little old lady (LOL) he rented it to. Before any residents moved in, the owner bought a washing machine he felt suitable for the two households to share between them, but he quickly needed to recoup his expenses for this amenity.
So the landlord added to each household's lease the same "minimum use" charge of $10.08 per month and gave the FRATS and LOL each a debit card to activate the washer. A swipe of the card allowed each separate household two wash loads a week, per the "minimum use" clause, and any use beyond that would cost $1 per extra load and charged to the household's card.
Now the LOL only had one load to wash each week, so the minimum fee worked out to about $2.30 for each use of the shared washer. The first two FRATS living in the big house were splitting that $10.08, so their weekly loads cost them just $1 apiece. As the FRATS added tenants, one by one, they were pleased when the cost per load was further reduced, and soon the washer was working away as hard as the students partied, which was a considerable amount. Still, the landlord's smile only grew wider as his revenues mounted on the debit card of the FRATS.
By the time five FRATS had moved in, however, they decided their household deserved a volume discount for all the extra $1 loads expensed to their card. The landlord figured it was a fair enough request -- after all, he wasn't getting anything beyond the $10.08 minimum from his deadbeat LOL tenant -- and so he reduced the price of loads beyond the two minimum a week down to 80 cents, six beyond to 60 cents, ten beyond to 40 cents, and so on. With this volume deal for the FRATS -- now numbering eight -- well, whew-ee, that washer was agitating night and day, often spinning a solitary puked on t-shirt just because it was so dirt cheap. The FRATS continued to party hard, while the LOL could hardly find a time the machine was free for her single load each week.
It turned out the skinflint landlord unfortunately had not purchased a Maytag -- he heard of a real steal on a machine advertised as "worth every penny" -- so by the time there were ten FRATS in residence, the overworked washer broke down one day while the LOL was doing her weekly load. The landlord now had repair bills to pay and replacement parts to purchase, so he felt he had no other choice but to raise the monthly minimum on both households to $20.
The LOL found the new minimum use fee a terrific hardship, but made no protest since she couldn't afford to move from her cozy cottage. She cut corners by taking half doses of her prescribed medicine and buying twice the cat food, though people noticed she didn't even own a cat. The FRATS coped by adding two more tenants and continuing to split the increases, but a month later the newly repaired machine broke down again, and it continued to break down from overuse on a regular basis. The landlord and FRATS remembered the quickest way to pay for repair expenses was again increasing the minimum use fee to both households equally. The LOL was too weak by now to disagree.
Now I'd like to say the landlord, the LOL and the FRATS all lived happily ever after, but that would be a lie. [At least I can reassure you the little old lady wasn't mutilated late last night.] Finally the cottage's tenant stopped taking her medicine altogether, hoarding the pills so that after she'd cut the very last corner she possibly could, she had the means to go peacefully to sleep one night and forget her troubles forever.
The big house tenants graduated and dispersed to places far and wide. Some enjoyed Maytag machines at their new households, and a few of them even learned the high price of not paying for playing. And the landlord? Sadly, no one wanted to lease his cottage due to its inequitable minimum use fee, which he stubbornly refused to see as unfair. The big house also couldn't be rented, because the party-hardy FRATS had trashed it so badly. So, he learned his lesson the hard way. He finally sold the vacant property at a great financial loss, and spent his final years neglected by the staff of a dirty and decrepit nursing home.
The story's moral? Now I'd like to say it's "Waste Not, Want Not," but this fairytale didn't really wind up that way, especially for the LOL. Perhaps instead it's no Bullwinkle, Sherman, that our sewer system and fee structure is on the precipice of a treacherously Rocky cliff. And fixing it revolves around the word "hard": Hardy partying vs. hardship; hardened hearts vs. hardheadedness. From hard choices to hardly caring and from hard sell to hard-pressed. Fix it, yes, but first make it fair.
Kathleen Martin 2/26/2010
Showing posts with label Georgetown Sewers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Georgetown Sewers. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Thursday, October 29, 2009
It'd take more than $3.5 million to clean up that stinking mess.
Now that he's intervened with the Feds to provide monies unavailable from Indiana to spend on local projects that none of us can afford because of the state of Indiana's peculiar Norquistian fiscal starvation fetish, can St. Rep. Clere assist the city of New Albany by obtaining economic stimulus funding to help the city clean up its most dangerous and threatening toxic waste problem?
I'm speaking of Dan Coffey's career on the city council.
Just curious: How many Republicans out there would have voted (or actually did vote) against the economic stimulus package? Just tweaking, mind you.
Meanwhile, read all about Georgetown's day in the sun, sewer-wise: Stimul-yes! Georgetown gets $3.5 million for wastewater treatment facility (News and Tribune).
I'm speaking of Dan Coffey's career on the city council.
Just curious: How many Republicans out there would have voted (or actually did vote) against the economic stimulus package? Just tweaking, mind you.
Meanwhile, read all about Georgetown's day in the sun, sewer-wise: Stimul-yes! Georgetown gets $3.5 million for wastewater treatment facility (News and Tribune).
Friday, September 18, 2009
Council Obfuscapalooza, Part Three: Making Georgetown do the sewer backstroke, and a garbage rate flip-flop.
This is the third part of my city council notes from September 17. For our Georgetown readers, and as a prelude to what follows, consider Bluegill's recent, brilliant encapsulation of sewer fixations as offered by councilman Jeff Gahan.
"CM Jeff Gahan says that the City Council maintains the authority to set sewer employee salaries and should continue to subsidize the sewer utility with EDIT funds as a function of the Council setting sewer rates and that neither he nor the Council is responsible for sewer related issues because the sewer board is autonomous."
---
R-09-22 A Resolution Seeking to Establish a Full-Time Position Or Office to Pursue Grant Funds … Gonder
Self-explanatory, but City Clerk Wisman reads the resolution, which charts the importance of grant writing in the context of federal aid and stimulus packages.
Coffey: We should be using free-lance grant writers who work on a percentage basis.
Gonder: Agreed, but citing a recently pursued grant that would not have been approved had “we” known a match was required, prefers a more coordinated effort.
Coffey is condescending with him, and Gonder endures it. That’s what bullies and the bullied do, isn’t it?
Coffey: We’re in agreement it is needed, but let’s not preclude using free lancers.
Gonder: The resolution doesn’t specify all this. It’s just a step in the right direction.
That surely dooms it. Are steps in the right direction permitted in New Albany?
Bob Caesar: “Would not have to be a forever position” (?) He counsels making it temporary to see if it works, lest we pay someone not to do something.
Like occupy a council seat? I wonder why Bob Caesar hates downtown so much. His business is there, and yet he consistently opposes the place where he works. Is this an improvement over Bill Schmidt?
All vote in favor except Benedetti and Zurschmiede, who vote against, without explanation.
A-09-11 Ordinance Appropriating Funds for One Time Cost Of Living Recognition Payment and Setting Amount Of Payments … Caesar 2
The usual tired arguments from Price. We have nothing, we can never have anything, we pay people too much, I’m impoverished and everyone should be dragged down to my underachieving level … which, when you come to think of it, is the essence of Communism in its real-life application. Fancy that. My councilman is more of a Commie than me.
All are in favor except the congenital no, Price.
G-09-19 An Ordinance to Reflect Technical Changes Necessary As a Result of An Agreement With the Town of Georgetown … McLaughlin 2
Here goes the sewer merry-go-round for another trip, with the 6th district's circus ringmaster at the helm. City attorney Shane Gibson steps up to explain.
Gibson: “It’s not here to ask you to bless anything … it’s the requirement of the state statute.” Says that language has been cleaned up. Wants the council to know that it need not bless the Georgetown agreement, just approve the sewer board’s completion of the negotiation and agreement. STATE STATUTE – if not, Shane would not bring it to the council.
Gahan has many questions and a few disagreements. Did Gtown pay the penalties?
Gibson: All except what was renegotiated. Roughly $800,000 worth paid. His ordinance doesn’t have the ability to affect NA citizens at all; the only wholesale customer the sewer utility has is Georgetown.
Gahan: It says it will not impact NA – I wanna know where the original 1.9 million went (?)
Gibson: $1.9 million was the price for Gtown to be on the city sewers forever. A year after that was negotiated, there was a new agreement because Gtown said it would build its own plant … so, the $1.9 million is all about the original state of affairs, with the reduction made because Gtown would no longer be using the capacity charted for the $1.9 million.
KZ: In my mind, Gtown is no closer to a new plant today than before, and now we want to give them more time. Why?
Gibson: Gtown has paid $900,000 already … the reality is, we can’t shut them off. The city doesn’t have the option to do that.
KZ: (glowering) Hold Gtown accountable for the agreement, irrespective of the people now in office there!
Gibson: They have made progress. The county is helping them. Two sites have been located, and they’re moving on them.
Benedetti: (yet again trying to be reasonable amid the bedlam of grudges past) They can’t do anything until we approve this -- approve the authority for the sewer board to do this – and give the sewer board the authority to do this.
For the umpteenth time, Gibson patiently repeats that the council is being asked to do this because the state requires it, not because the council is being asked to bless the sewer boards negotiation with Georgetown. Gibson doesn’t want to speak about the specifics of the negotiation because the sewer board is not present, but he hazards the view that the current negotiated settlement is incentive for Gtown to get off the system.
Gahan: (Chihuahua-like) Adamant about the $400,000 that he states Gtown is being forgiven, and says that this sum might well impact NA ratepayers because it “all comes from the same pot.”
ALL OF IT, EXCEPT THE EDIT RATE SUBSIDIES IN NA, THAT GAHAN FAVORS, AND THAT RESULT IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT MONIES BEING EXPENDED AS POLITICAL SUBSIDY FOR THE CONCIL’S RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGNS.
McLaughlin: $400,000 is a balance, not a fine.
Gibson: They paid $800,000. The bodies involved agreed to the compromise on the negotiation.
McLaughlin: “It’s hard for us to do this too.”
Yep, it doesn’t seem to get any easier.
Benedetti: Says that this ordinance should go through because it makes no sense to bankrupt Gtown in order to collect from them.
Clerk Wisman: (I didn’t catch all of this) If Gtown gets off the system, they don’t owe us the $450,000, because the pipe doesn’t have to be made larger to handle their flow.
KZ: Objects once again to the agreement reached by the sewer board.
This being the board that is NOT HERE to discuss the SPECIFICS of it.
Gahan: Would the city attorney “guarantee no rate increases in 2010” right here and now?
In effect, Gibson laughs at him.
Last meeting’s vote on this ordinance was sizably against. Same thing tonight.
For: Caesar, Benedetti
Against: Price, McLaughlin (intones something about it being only the 2nd reading), Gahan, Gonder, Messer, KZ, Coffey
Coffey says he has more questions for Gibson but will ask them later, out of earshot of the public. A guy from the audience asks if he may comment. Coffey says no, only the council president can violate council protocol with impunity.
G-09-17 An Ordinance Authorizing Modification Of Certain Provisions Of The Economic Development Revenue Bonds, Series 2004A (Christian Academy Of Indiana, INC Project) of the City Of New Albany … Price 3
8:45 pm. Things seemed to be going so well there for a while.
No comments. Unanimous in favor.
Z-09-10 An Ordinance For The Vacation Of An Existing Easement Pursuant To A Petition Filed By Carl Holiday And Stephen Goodman … Zurschmiede 3
Unanimous, in favor. Carl and Steve don’t have to sit through this any longer.
G-09-16 An Amendment to Ordinance §50.08 Regarding User/Service Fees for Collection of Refuse, Garbage And Yard Waste … Messer 3
As amended with much theatrics last time, with the amendment being a $2 raise with cost of living increases written into it in the future.
Coffey: No committee for this one ‘cuz the nasty administration first proposed it.
Price: Believes in other options. This bad contract “isn’t our fault” because of the former administration did it. “I’m real uncomfortable with that yearly, I know how that goes, people are hurting.”
Messer: Could cost us twice if we don’t deal with the current contract.
Benedetti: has nothing to do with EcoTech – this is to bring us back even with cost of living increases and avoid the subsidy under way currently. Former mayor Garner negotiated the best deal he could, absorbing the employees and trash haulers and bad trucks. She defends this ordinance.
Caesar: $2 is for the consumer price index increase. Get the CPI straightened out with each contract. The increases have been less than a dollar per year – three increases of less than dollar, and so if it is written in to reflect this, there’ll be only cents increases, but now, “wow we have to throw two bucks at everybody.”
Two bucks. Geez, Caesar’s such a political coward.
McLaughlin: Reads verbatim from the contract to the effect that the trucks are not supposed to LEAK bad liquids in places that smell, but they do, and what are we going to do about that?
Everyone: BOARD OF PUBLIC WORKS. Thank you.
Gibson: Can’t fix it if you don’t give me details, Pat.
McLaughlin: Complains about garbage cans as stated in the EcoTech contract … mentions recycling, but it appears it is recycling the cans?
Gibson: Differentiates between city obligations and contract stipulations.
Benedetti: Just about the two dollars.
Gahan: But there’ll be a surplus?
Gibson: The 50,000 surplus is for the neighborhood cleanups that everyone wants – yes, it adds up to more, but not very much more.
Price: “One more point and I’ll shut up. “It’s a mute point.” We should be able to make money on garbage as a city, just like the private businesses make money from it. Put it back in-house.
Price now joins Erika in advocating taking EDIT money away from economic development and giving it outright to “people who are hurting – that’s what I say.”
Vote taken:
For: Caesar, Benedetti, Gonder, Messer, KZ
Against: Price, McLaughlin, Gahan, Coffey
It is approved. Who flipped? Gotta look that one up, but I wasn’t here when the 2nd reading took place. I had been removed from that one.
MISCELLANOUS ITEMS:
Nothing of consequence, so we stop. Knitting needles through the eyes.
"CM Jeff Gahan says that the City Council maintains the authority to set sewer employee salaries and should continue to subsidize the sewer utility with EDIT funds as a function of the Council setting sewer rates and that neither he nor the Council is responsible for sewer related issues because the sewer board is autonomous."
---
R-09-22 A Resolution Seeking to Establish a Full-Time Position Or Office to Pursue Grant Funds … Gonder
Self-explanatory, but City Clerk Wisman reads the resolution, which charts the importance of grant writing in the context of federal aid and stimulus packages.
Coffey: We should be using free-lance grant writers who work on a percentage basis.
Gonder: Agreed, but citing a recently pursued grant that would not have been approved had “we” known a match was required, prefers a more coordinated effort.
Coffey is condescending with him, and Gonder endures it. That’s what bullies and the bullied do, isn’t it?
Coffey: We’re in agreement it is needed, but let’s not preclude using free lancers.
Gonder: The resolution doesn’t specify all this. It’s just a step in the right direction.
That surely dooms it. Are steps in the right direction permitted in New Albany?
Bob Caesar: “Would not have to be a forever position” (?) He counsels making it temporary to see if it works, lest we pay someone not to do something.
Like occupy a council seat? I wonder why Bob Caesar hates downtown so much. His business is there, and yet he consistently opposes the place where he works. Is this an improvement over Bill Schmidt?
All vote in favor except Benedetti and Zurschmiede, who vote against, without explanation.
A-09-11 Ordinance Appropriating Funds for One Time Cost Of Living Recognition Payment and Setting Amount Of Payments … Caesar 2
The usual tired arguments from Price. We have nothing, we can never have anything, we pay people too much, I’m impoverished and everyone should be dragged down to my underachieving level … which, when you come to think of it, is the essence of Communism in its real-life application. Fancy that. My councilman is more of a Commie than me.
All are in favor except the congenital no, Price.
G-09-19 An Ordinance to Reflect Technical Changes Necessary As a Result of An Agreement With the Town of Georgetown … McLaughlin 2
Here goes the sewer merry-go-round for another trip, with the 6th district's circus ringmaster at the helm. City attorney Shane Gibson steps up to explain.
Gibson: “It’s not here to ask you to bless anything … it’s the requirement of the state statute.” Says that language has been cleaned up. Wants the council to know that it need not bless the Georgetown agreement, just approve the sewer board’s completion of the negotiation and agreement. STATE STATUTE – if not, Shane would not bring it to the council.
Gahan has many questions and a few disagreements. Did Gtown pay the penalties?
Gibson: All except what was renegotiated. Roughly $800,000 worth paid. His ordinance doesn’t have the ability to affect NA citizens at all; the only wholesale customer the sewer utility has is Georgetown.
Gahan: It says it will not impact NA – I wanna know where the original 1.9 million went (?)
Gibson: $1.9 million was the price for Gtown to be on the city sewers forever. A year after that was negotiated, there was a new agreement because Gtown said it would build its own plant … so, the $1.9 million is all about the original state of affairs, with the reduction made because Gtown would no longer be using the capacity charted for the $1.9 million.
KZ: In my mind, Gtown is no closer to a new plant today than before, and now we want to give them more time. Why?
Gibson: Gtown has paid $900,000 already … the reality is, we can’t shut them off. The city doesn’t have the option to do that.
KZ: (glowering) Hold Gtown accountable for the agreement, irrespective of the people now in office there!
Gibson: They have made progress. The county is helping them. Two sites have been located, and they’re moving on them.
Benedetti: (yet again trying to be reasonable amid the bedlam of grudges past) They can’t do anything until we approve this -- approve the authority for the sewer board to do this – and give the sewer board the authority to do this.
For the umpteenth time, Gibson patiently repeats that the council is being asked to do this because the state requires it, not because the council is being asked to bless the sewer boards negotiation with Georgetown. Gibson doesn’t want to speak about the specifics of the negotiation because the sewer board is not present, but he hazards the view that the current negotiated settlement is incentive for Gtown to get off the system.
Gahan: (Chihuahua-like) Adamant about the $400,000 that he states Gtown is being forgiven, and says that this sum might well impact NA ratepayers because it “all comes from the same pot.”
ALL OF IT, EXCEPT THE EDIT RATE SUBSIDIES IN NA, THAT GAHAN FAVORS, AND THAT RESULT IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT MONIES BEING EXPENDED AS POLITICAL SUBSIDY FOR THE CONCIL’S RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGNS.
McLaughlin: $400,000 is a balance, not a fine.
Gibson: They paid $800,000. The bodies involved agreed to the compromise on the negotiation.
McLaughlin: “It’s hard for us to do this too.”
Yep, it doesn’t seem to get any easier.
Benedetti: Says that this ordinance should go through because it makes no sense to bankrupt Gtown in order to collect from them.
Clerk Wisman: (I didn’t catch all of this) If Gtown gets off the system, they don’t owe us the $450,000, because the pipe doesn’t have to be made larger to handle their flow.
KZ: Objects once again to the agreement reached by the sewer board.
This being the board that is NOT HERE to discuss the SPECIFICS of it.
Gahan: Would the city attorney “guarantee no rate increases in 2010” right here and now?
In effect, Gibson laughs at him.
Last meeting’s vote on this ordinance was sizably against. Same thing tonight.
For: Caesar, Benedetti
Against: Price, McLaughlin (intones something about it being only the 2nd reading), Gahan, Gonder, Messer, KZ, Coffey
Coffey says he has more questions for Gibson but will ask them later, out of earshot of the public. A guy from the audience asks if he may comment. Coffey says no, only the council president can violate council protocol with impunity.
G-09-17 An Ordinance Authorizing Modification Of Certain Provisions Of The Economic Development Revenue Bonds, Series 2004A (Christian Academy Of Indiana, INC Project) of the City Of New Albany … Price 3
8:45 pm. Things seemed to be going so well there for a while.
No comments. Unanimous in favor.
Z-09-10 An Ordinance For The Vacation Of An Existing Easement Pursuant To A Petition Filed By Carl Holiday And Stephen Goodman … Zurschmiede 3
Unanimous, in favor. Carl and Steve don’t have to sit through this any longer.
G-09-16 An Amendment to Ordinance §50.08 Regarding User/Service Fees for Collection of Refuse, Garbage And Yard Waste … Messer 3
As amended with much theatrics last time, with the amendment being a $2 raise with cost of living increases written into it in the future.
Coffey: No committee for this one ‘cuz the nasty administration first proposed it.
Price: Believes in other options. This bad contract “isn’t our fault” because of the former administration did it. “I’m real uncomfortable with that yearly, I know how that goes, people are hurting.”
Messer: Could cost us twice if we don’t deal with the current contract.
Benedetti: has nothing to do with EcoTech – this is to bring us back even with cost of living increases and avoid the subsidy under way currently. Former mayor Garner negotiated the best deal he could, absorbing the employees and trash haulers and bad trucks. She defends this ordinance.
Caesar: $2 is for the consumer price index increase. Get the CPI straightened out with each contract. The increases have been less than a dollar per year – three increases of less than dollar, and so if it is written in to reflect this, there’ll be only cents increases, but now, “wow we have to throw two bucks at everybody.”
Two bucks. Geez, Caesar’s such a political coward.
McLaughlin: Reads verbatim from the contract to the effect that the trucks are not supposed to LEAK bad liquids in places that smell, but they do, and what are we going to do about that?
Everyone: BOARD OF PUBLIC WORKS. Thank you.
Gibson: Can’t fix it if you don’t give me details, Pat.
McLaughlin: Complains about garbage cans as stated in the EcoTech contract … mentions recycling, but it appears it is recycling the cans?
Gibson: Differentiates between city obligations and contract stipulations.
Benedetti: Just about the two dollars.
Gahan: But there’ll be a surplus?
Gibson: The 50,000 surplus is for the neighborhood cleanups that everyone wants – yes, it adds up to more, but not very much more.
Price: “One more point and I’ll shut up. “It’s a mute point.” We should be able to make money on garbage as a city, just like the private businesses make money from it. Put it back in-house.
Price now joins Erika in advocating taking EDIT money away from economic development and giving it outright to “people who are hurting – that’s what I say.”
Vote taken:
For: Caesar, Benedetti, Gonder, Messer, KZ
Against: Price, McLaughlin, Gahan, Coffey
It is approved. Who flipped? Gotta look that one up, but I wasn’t here when the 2nd reading took place. I had been removed from that one.
MISCELLANOUS ITEMS:
Nothing of consequence, so we stop. Knitting needles through the eyes.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Ammonia, Indigent Flushers, & Politics
What do all three have in common? They stink!!!
I was present for most of last night's council workshop on Georgetown's sewer rates.
Due to health issues of the past few days I couldn't stay for the entire show but I did hang in long enough to gather that this whole debacle is being drawn out for political gain on all fronts.
As I understand it the core issue is that duly elected Georgetown officials from days gone by entered into an agreement with New Albany' Sewer Board.
(Note Sewer Board ... NOT the City of New Albany nor it's Common Council!)
At the time all the legal minds were in agreement that it was a statutory legal agreement.
Georgetown dictated the terms and although our Sewer Board offered longer time periods, G'town's leadership seemed confident with a four year gig.
Now the time has come & gone. In fact it has been extended numerous times and still no discernable action on Georgetown's part to build their own plant.
Meanwhile even given their best efforts to treat it on their end, G'town's effluent is costing more for us to treat due to it's chemical composition than does our own sh@#.
In addition, that same chemical composition is eating away at our lines, pumps, & infrastructure more so than is normal.
So our Sewer Board after much deliberation elected to call in their marker.
Georgetown's new leaders are now crying FOUL!! And they're pulling out all the stops.
"Our fixed income citizens who are living on $600.00 a month can't afford to flush!"
"It cost us $84 to $100 thousand per month to maitain & operate our ill conceived antiquated system!"
"The Floyd County Government blocked the original plant site and we had to start over!"
And my favorite of all:
"The agreement in place will not stand up in court!" May I see your legal degree please?
So now enter the politicos.
Floyd County in conjunction with citizen lawsuits successfuly blocked the Edwardsville area site because of currying favor to potential future developers for that area.
Now they are trying to rectify that move and curry favor with Georgetown voters by offering to pay for another site on the west side of G'town contingent on the County securing Federal funds.
Said funds are at least a year out, by the way.
Then comes our very own Common Council leadership to weigh in on another community's business.
"We can't just let 'em go broke!"
"We gotta do the right thing!"
Meanwhile our Sewer Board is saying "It's not a fine, it is just what you, via your duly elected officials, agreed to do!"
So if G'town wins and our Council chooses to saddle us and our system with the burden for perpetuity, does this mean I can cry foul and walk away from my legal financial obligations as well??
Who really wins/loses here?
Inquiring minds want to know!!
I was present for most of last night's council workshop on Georgetown's sewer rates.
Due to health issues of the past few days I couldn't stay for the entire show but I did hang in long enough to gather that this whole debacle is being drawn out for political gain on all fronts.
As I understand it the core issue is that duly elected Georgetown officials from days gone by entered into an agreement with New Albany' Sewer Board.
(Note Sewer Board ... NOT the City of New Albany nor it's Common Council!)
At the time all the legal minds were in agreement that it was a statutory legal agreement.
Georgetown dictated the terms and although our Sewer Board offered longer time periods, G'town's leadership seemed confident with a four year gig.
Now the time has come & gone. In fact it has been extended numerous times and still no discernable action on Georgetown's part to build their own plant.
Meanwhile even given their best efforts to treat it on their end, G'town's effluent is costing more for us to treat due to it's chemical composition than does our own sh@#.
In addition, that same chemical composition is eating away at our lines, pumps, & infrastructure more so than is normal.
So our Sewer Board after much deliberation elected to call in their marker.
Georgetown's new leaders are now crying FOUL!! And they're pulling out all the stops.
"Our fixed income citizens who are living on $600.00 a month can't afford to flush!"
"It cost us $84 to $100 thousand per month to maitain & operate our ill conceived antiquated system!"
"The Floyd County Government blocked the original plant site and we had to start over!"
And my favorite of all:
"The agreement in place will not stand up in court!" May I see your legal degree please?
So now enter the politicos.
Floyd County in conjunction with citizen lawsuits successfuly blocked the Edwardsville area site because of currying favor to potential future developers for that area.
Now they are trying to rectify that move and curry favor with Georgetown voters by offering to pay for another site on the west side of G'town contingent on the County securing Federal funds.
Said funds are at least a year out, by the way.
Then comes our very own Common Council leadership to weigh in on another community's business.
"We can't just let 'em go broke!"
"We gotta do the right thing!"
Meanwhile our Sewer Board is saying "It's not a fine, it is just what you, via your duly elected officials, agreed to do!"
So if G'town wins and our Council chooses to saddle us and our system with the burden for perpetuity, does this mean I can cry foul and walk away from my legal financial obligations as well??
Who really wins/loses here?
Inquiring minds want to know!!
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