Editors Note – An abbreviated version of this opinion piece has also been published in The Daily Dispatch‘s paper on Saturday, 1/24/2015.
Dear Commissioners,
I respectfully request that you address the following issue at your upcoming Planning Retreat.
You told citizens in public meetings that 5000 gallons of water would cost $35-45, with no mention whatsoever of a monthly fee if they signed up but wanted water later. Those who signed up based on your promises learned of the monthly fee only after signing their agreements with the County. It was legalese hidden in the bowels of the contract. When citizens you hoodwinked protested, Deputy County Manager Jordan McMillen said that everything was perfectly legal because officials were never specific. County Attorney Jonathan Care said that all was legal; citizens just didn’t understand what they were signing and should have read the fine print. You have even threatened to take legal action against those citizens who have questioned your legal and moral authority and are practicing lawful civil disobedience. Your behavior has been truly arrogant, condescending, and contemptible!
You and County Manager Jerry Ayscue told citizens that only if 80% of us signed up would there even be a water system. You made projections based on 1750 customers. Eight years of your best effort, tens of thousands of our dollars wasted, professionals hired to sign up people you couldn’t, and you still have less than 600 customers.
You held a bond referendum that asked our permission to encumber every square inch of our land as collateral for enormous, ill-advised loans. The referendum came within a hair of being defeated, even though you unethically, perhaps illegally allowed voters who do not own land in Vance County and voters who already have municipal water to stuff the ballot box.
You promised that the water system would be self-supporting and that no tax dollars would ever be used. Your ten year projection shows that millions of tax dollars will be needed to prop up this failed system.
You have created and are subsidizing a new class of welfare recipients in Vance County – water customers.
For the benefit of developers and landlords, you forced a water system on property owners who neither needed nor wanted it.
Given your current predicament, there is only one honorable solution. Do away with the fee and charge the few customers you have the full, non-subsidized price for the water they use.
Please tell us why you refuse to do what is right by the overwhelming majority of Vance County taxpayers.
Rusty McMahon
As Click and Clack would have said, out from the inky shadows comes Crusty the old wise man to give the answer to last week’s puzzler; now out steps Rusty with the answer to the country’s water debacle. At last month’s the water committee the tap fee issue was again discussed and unresolved. During the discussion another vocal critic of the county’s sleight of hand move on tap fees and water rates said he didn’t read the contract because he trusted that the commissioners would do the right thing by the very people needed to support the project. Mr. Care laughingly said that was your mistake.
I was told by one commissioner that Mr. Care has warned all commissioners admitting they authorized the building of a water system without the required 80% property owner support has major legal ramifications.