We can dream, can't we?
The work sessions of the New Albany City Council are predictably scripted affairs, and although the public is grudgingly allowed to attend, this council has no interest in the participation of the public, despite the fact that at any given time, more members of the audience are up to speed on the issue at hand than are sitting among the knights of the squared tables. Want to advance this city? Get elected. Otherwise, sit down and shut up.
We're often baffled at how this council majority can delude itself into the belief that being elected, often without opposition and by a phenomenally small majority of its constituents, imbues them with a divine right and supreme judgment on all matters governmental.
But, they did manage to get on the public payroll in the accepted manner, and whether they earn their keep or not, they do get to make the final decisions.
But that doesn't mean we have to shut up.
If Monday's 6 p.m. work session presentation is to be believed, the England administration, the Sewer Board, and their financial advisers, Crowe Chizek and Company, LLC, have the golden ticket on a silver plate.
Perhaps for the first time in living memory, New Albany has an opportunity to make its sanitary sewer utility a self-sustaining entity. All municipal enterprises (and "enterprise" is, in this instance, a term of art) are intended to be self-sufficient. That is, they are required to support themselves from their own revenues and, from time to time, return surpluses to their owners, the cities who authorized, founded, and funded them.
New Albany's wise men seem to have skipped class during the semester they offered Public Finance and Fund Accounting 101. But maybe the dark ages of deteriorating sewers is coming to an end.
If the presentation is to be believed, a five-year program of physical plant improvements (none are optional and most are mandated by court order) can be funded by a manageable bond issue combined with a modest increase in rates. The rate increase is what you'll be hearing the most about, even though New Albany's rates will be, by far, the lowest for comparable cities in this region, even after an adjustment.
The most promising aspect of the plan is that a previously committed $875,000 of EDIT (economic development income tax) funds will be returned for more appropriate use by the city. Within five years, we are promised, the city will have a functioning sewage system and the financial stability to not only support itself, but to finance ongoing capital projects without any additional borrowing.
The minimum ratepayer, the proverbial granny on a fixed income (we have one in our family, too) would be looking at a bill increase of $2.20 per month ($26.40/year) on sewer charges. The average user would be facing a bill increase of $7.70 per month ($92.40/year). Compared to a gas fuel charge increase of $60 a month, that's not bad, especially when you recall that in New Albany we would still be paying at rates well below market price.
Yes, the administration could be lying. Crowe Chizek could be lying. But the risk seems nominal, particularly if we never again have to dwell on excreta and its treatment as the primary focus of our government.
We are hopeful that bluegill will again demonstrate why EDIT taxes are a pandering fool's method for pretending to serve the people.
By the way...heard any complaints about garbage service lately?
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