Mayors Lack of Vision Costly to Citizens

An interesting thread started by Mike Hutt is racing along over on the chatter.  It seems that the city will have to bond yet more money for the for the pumping stations related to the fixing of the CSOs.  The problem becomes that the sewer dept. can only bond about $41 million at the current sewer rates.  So in order to bond that amount of money, the sewer department will more than likely have to raise rates again.  So next time you see Mikey Moore ask him about those rate cuts he told implied when he was running.

This was an inevitable end to the ordeal unfortunately.  The cost of this program REQUIRED by the EPA hasn't changed that much.  What has changed is the method of paying for it. 

Under Tom Galligans plans tax revenues from the canal district would have gone to paying off the bonds required to complete this project.  Plus the canal helps relieve downtown flooding and works with the pedestrian bridge to create a thriving downtown.

Now we get none of those benefits and instead of business paying the bill, we as sewer customers get to cover the whole amount.  And in one sentence I've managed to describe Mikey and his followers fatal flaw that we all must now pay for.  Short sightedness.

Little Mikey's platform of lets do as little as possible and save us all money just doesn't hold water in today's world.  The world we live in is ever changing and the standards that communities hold themselves to is changing as well.  There will continue to be other changes throughout the city's future that will have to be made because of this.  Ignoring this fact and waiting to be told what to do and having to do it at the last minute is what got us in this mess in the first place. 

The city has had a CSO problem for quite some time, but wasnt made to fix the problem so just went on about life as if nothing was wrong.  The problem was, it was only going to get worse and one day the city was going to told to fix the problem.  The longer we waited, the more costly it was going to be.

Mikey's and his moore-ons views are shortsighted and costly to the rest of us.  His lack of vision and creativity is even more costly.  As stated above Galligan had a creative plan that brought the city in compliance with the EPA, solved flooding problems in downtown, beautified and grew the city and had a creative way to pay for it.  Mikey's solution is boring and completely lacking any creativity.  And so is his method to pay for it.  Through billing us, the citizens.