It never fails to amuse me how entertainingly "hippo"critical mount gretna christians are---pun intended [the morbidly obese ones know who they are].
More importantly, snavely's persistent interest in persons she has no responsibility for or relationship/business with is a revealing obsession--if, as she insists, there was no merit to the financial hankypanky scheme that I discovered, then why is she wasting so much time on what she is wanting the public to believe is not a credible source? Well, she remains obessed because she has full knowledge of the money that is being/has been skimmed out of the pockets of mount gretna borough and pennsylvania chautauqua citizens---and doesn't it look a lot like she is trying to help cover it up by harassing and silencing the source?
Back in 2009, when I first discovered this financial imbroglio, my estimate was that 2.4 million is unaccounted for--and that's the gap that I could see from the documents and reports that I managed to get my hands on. Who knows what grants, transfers, etc. never made it to any document, budget or ledger. I also did the correct thing and reported it to the district attorneys office, specifically naming at least four public officials that had to have knowledge of the improper activities. Coincidentally, one of the activities described to him was the misreporting of work hours to inflate paychecks and to qualify for and receive benefits.
Instead of doing what he was ethically bound to do--pass it on to either the state police or the attorney general, weeks later he charged my wife and i with criminal activities that we never committed and used three of the four reported public officials (Linda Bell, Andrew Allwein, and William "Bill" Care) as "reputation witnesses" at our trial [at which these persons gave false testimony, by the way]. The fourth public official--Chuck Allwein was just as conspiratorial and active in this farce, by working with the da to silence the publication of details of the financial scheme, inter alia. And during all this, Snively was doing her part to discredit, harass, and intimidate by using her access to the local media, to the local political parties, and to the financial reports and "books", to assist in the cover up and to prevent proper investigation into the matter. (If you have another way of seeing it, please, do tell--but give facts, not opinions.)
Now you don't have to believe my assertions that misreporting your hours worked in order to inflate your wages and benefits is a crime. In fact, don't pay any attention to me at all. Just look to the district attorney's office itself and you will see that its a crime. In the two and a half years since my reporting of such activities to him, the da has clearly demonstrated this via the prosecution of two lebanon county public officials for misreporting work hours: he has prosecuted/participated in the prosecution of a former police chief for misreporting a few hours of overtime, and he is prosecuting a former myerstown town clerk/financial secretary for misreporting hours worked. Ironically, the chief's alleged misreporting did not result in that public official deriving any personal gain. On the other hand, the clerk's alleged misdeeds resulted in tens of thousands of dollars of personal gain for her. By the way, the myerstown clerk's alleged ill-gotten bounty pales in comparison to what Linda Bell has had unfettered access to...and to what Bill Care has raked in. Pales.
More importantly, however, is that these prosecutions show that the lebanon county da has a clear understanding of how he was supposed to handle the reported financial improprieties, misreporting, etc, and thereby reveals his own knowing participation in/support of the misdeeds.
So when HACC instructor kathy snavely uses her darling "social media" to publish knowingly false information about someone that even she admits has not published anything to annoy or to poke her fat ass for over a year, she is proving that neither religiosity (at least her version of it, anyway) nor social media require integrity from their participants, even if those participants call themselves "experts" at it and are paid to teach on the subject at a local community college.
Kathy dear, does Harrisburg Area Community College know that you use your subject matter (social media) in this manner--for malfeasance, ill-will, and obsessing? Maybe they should be made aware. Maybe they should be shown how questionable your self-professed "expertise" with social media really is. How do you put this shit on your resume: "Used Twitter succesfully to engage in pattern of bullying and intimdation to foil the request for investigation into financial improprieties involving entity of which I am a voting board member"; "Adopted extremely fexible/adaptable philosophical belief system in order to achieve the appearance of integrity and ethics without really having to live with integrity or demonstrate positive ethical traits";...
Its slightly entertaining how such a large person can actually be so vacuous of any substance.
Hugs and Kisses, my dear.
Showing posts with label use of public resources for private gain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label use of public resources for private gain. Show all posts
Monday, June 11, 2012
Monday, February 22, 2010
More details on the Borough's use of public resources
A reader posted a comment on a recent post here and asked several questions.
In providing the answers to the reader's questions, I thought that the information in the answers should be made available in a more general way. So, I am posting the answer as a new post, rather than as a comment embedded in an older post.
JB, I will try to answer each of your questions in the order that you asked them.
First, the "other places" are all private entities, and there are at least four (4) of them. Three of these private entities are located completely outside our Borough's municipal boundaries, and one private corporation is located within the Borough boundaries. Yes, Campmeeting is one of them. THe others are Conewago Hill, the Mount Gretna Heights (which is the Campmeeting "heights"--not the Chautauqua "heights"), the Pennsylvania Chautauqua.
Second, the "sharing" relationships may or may not be "under a contract." The Borough currently has four snow-plowing/removal contracts with outside entities--three are with private parties, one is with a public party. However, regardless of the existence of these contracts, state law (Borough Code, Section 1703) clearly prohibits the Borough taking or assuming "any interest" in a road that is an undedicated road--i.e. those private roads belonging to homeowners associations. So, even with the contract with the public entity--S. Londonderry, if the roads being plowed are not dedicated, this is still a problem for the MG Borough.
Cornwall Borough recently had to deal with this very same issue--a homeowners association or development asked them to plow the development's road(s), and their solicitor correctly advised them that the law prohibited the municipality from using public resources to do this work for this private entity. (See their Jan 2010 Meeting Minutes, available at their website)
Further, the salt and anti-skid materials used in these contracts are typically paid for with State funds (Liquid Fuels funds), so the Borough must use those materials on their own roads--the roads that triggered the State to share Liquid Fuels monies with the Borough. So, unless the Borough used its own, NON-Liquid Fuels funds to purchase the materials used for these contracts, here we would have another violation of state law.
Further, if you try to get details on that "sharing relationship" between the Chautauqua (a private corporation) and the Borough (a public entity), the Borough only provides a copy of 1988 Council meeting minutes where they voted to start billing the Pennsylvania Chautauqua "on a monthly basis for payroll." Note the word "payroll"--that is an important word, so I will comment more on that below. The PA Chautauqua, being on the other end of the "agreement", simply refuses to provide the information, wrongfully claiming that they are a private company and that, as such, the Open Records Act does not apply. I say "wrongfully" for two reasons: First, in their own tax filings to the IRS, they repeatedly report that such "working documents" are made available to the public upon request. And, second, the Open Records law clearly applies to private entities that are performing or delivering something to a public entity. At a minimum, when either entity is asked for details on that relationship, the Borough will be "deemed" to have access to the information even if it is being kept by the Chautauqua, and must "retrieve" and provide the information.
The other problem with the "sharing relationship" between the Chautauqua (a private corporation) and the MG Borough (a public entity)is that the transaction does not seem to be accurately--or maybe not honestly, reported. For example, The Borough reports that it "shares" Linda Bell with the Chautauqua, meaning that a large percentage of her work and pay is allocated to the Chautauqua. Linda Bell is also the Chautauqua's Financial Secretary. Further, in working their General Fund numbers--numbers not neccessarily reported to the IRS, the Chautauqua numbers detailing its "transfer" to the Borough are broken down into things like salaries, health insurance benefits, State Pension Fund monies, etc.
However, when reporting to the IRS, the Chautauqua indicates that:
1. It has no labor costs.
2. It does not pay any of its officers or it volunteers; and
3. Its transfer to the Borough (reported as intergovernmental transfer) is a fraction of the "labor-costs" that it actually pays to the Borough. For example, the Chautauqua's General Fund breakdown could indicate that it transfers 100k to the Borough in one year, but their IRS Tax Form 990 would report only a 30K transfer to the Borough.
Now, let me wrap this all up by reminding everyone that any type of sharing relationship is supposed to benefit the taxpayer in terms of provision of services that protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public.
And, just because the Chautauqua says that it serves as a "billings and collection conduit" to promote efficiencies and to reduce the cost to the taxpayer, that statement may not really be true. For example, in reality, we have a water/sewer authority that sends us water bills, and the same person that sends us those water bills is the same person that sends us our shareholder assessment bills (which contain our sewer bills). It is not reasonable to think that this parsing out of the sewer bill is an efficiency when there are only 200 or so bills to be sent and when it would take much less time and effort to simply include the sewer charges in with the water bill and send the payment back to the same Authority address in the same envelope.
So, is it really an "efficiency" then to involve a third party--a private entity, to collect sewer fees here, or is it just a way to avoid transparency and the sharing of information with the same public that you are collecting monies from?
In providing the answers to the reader's questions, I thought that the information in the answers should be made available in a more general way. So, I am posting the answer as a new post, rather than as a comment embedded in an older post.
JB, I will try to answer each of your questions in the order that you asked them.
First, the "other places" are all private entities, and there are at least four (4) of them. Three of these private entities are located completely outside our Borough's municipal boundaries, and one private corporation is located within the Borough boundaries. Yes, Campmeeting is one of them. THe others are Conewago Hill, the Mount Gretna Heights (which is the Campmeeting "heights"--not the Chautauqua "heights"), the Pennsylvania Chautauqua.
Second, the "sharing" relationships may or may not be "under a contract." The Borough currently has four snow-plowing/removal contracts with outside entities--three are with private parties, one is with a public party. However, regardless of the existence of these contracts, state law (Borough Code, Section 1703) clearly prohibits the Borough taking or assuming "any interest" in a road that is an undedicated road--i.e. those private roads belonging to homeowners associations. So, even with the contract with the public entity--S. Londonderry, if the roads being plowed are not dedicated, this is still a problem for the MG Borough.
Cornwall Borough recently had to deal with this very same issue--a homeowners association or development asked them to plow the development's road(s), and their solicitor correctly advised them that the law prohibited the municipality from using public resources to do this work for this private entity. (See their Jan 2010 Meeting Minutes, available at their website)
Further, the salt and anti-skid materials used in these contracts are typically paid for with State funds (Liquid Fuels funds), so the Borough must use those materials on their own roads--the roads that triggered the State to share Liquid Fuels monies with the Borough. So, unless the Borough used its own, NON-Liquid Fuels funds to purchase the materials used for these contracts, here we would have another violation of state law.
Further, if you try to get details on that "sharing relationship" between the Chautauqua (a private corporation) and the Borough (a public entity), the Borough only provides a copy of 1988 Council meeting minutes where they voted to start billing the Pennsylvania Chautauqua "on a monthly basis for payroll." Note the word "payroll"--that is an important word, so I will comment more on that below. The PA Chautauqua, being on the other end of the "agreement", simply refuses to provide the information, wrongfully claiming that they are a private company and that, as such, the Open Records Act does not apply. I say "wrongfully" for two reasons: First, in their own tax filings to the IRS, they repeatedly report that such "working documents" are made available to the public upon request. And, second, the Open Records law clearly applies to private entities that are performing or delivering something to a public entity. At a minimum, when either entity is asked for details on that relationship, the Borough will be "deemed" to have access to the information even if it is being kept by the Chautauqua, and must "retrieve" and provide the information.
The other problem with the "sharing relationship" between the Chautauqua (a private corporation) and the MG Borough (a public entity)is that the transaction does not seem to be accurately--or maybe not honestly, reported. For example, The Borough reports that it "shares" Linda Bell with the Chautauqua, meaning that a large percentage of her work and pay is allocated to the Chautauqua. Linda Bell is also the Chautauqua's Financial Secretary. Further, in working their General Fund numbers--numbers not neccessarily reported to the IRS, the Chautauqua numbers detailing its "transfer" to the Borough are broken down into things like salaries, health insurance benefits, State Pension Fund monies, etc.
However, when reporting to the IRS, the Chautauqua indicates that:
1. It has no labor costs.
2. It does not pay any of its officers or it volunteers; and
3. Its transfer to the Borough (reported as intergovernmental transfer) is a fraction of the "labor-costs" that it actually pays to the Borough. For example, the Chautauqua's General Fund breakdown could indicate that it transfers 100k to the Borough in one year, but their IRS Tax Form 990 would report only a 30K transfer to the Borough.
Now, let me wrap this all up by reminding everyone that any type of sharing relationship is supposed to benefit the taxpayer in terms of provision of services that protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public.
And, just because the Chautauqua says that it serves as a "billings and collection conduit" to promote efficiencies and to reduce the cost to the taxpayer, that statement may not really be true. For example, in reality, we have a water/sewer authority that sends us water bills, and the same person that sends us those water bills is the same person that sends us our shareholder assessment bills (which contain our sewer bills). It is not reasonable to think that this parsing out of the sewer bill is an efficiency when there are only 200 or so bills to be sent and when it would take much less time and effort to simply include the sewer charges in with the water bill and send the payment back to the same Authority address in the same envelope.
So, is it really an "efficiency" then to involve a third party--a private entity, to collect sewer fees here, or is it just a way to avoid transparency and the sharing of information with the same public that you are collecting monies from?
Friday, February 19, 2010
Borough council not telling it like it is
Every November, Mt. Gretna Borough officials comply with state laws that require that independent public bodies publish the upcoming year's budget for the taxpaying public to review and comment on. Independent government bodies have to publish, each their own, a budget. Here, the Authority and the Borough are independent public bodies. Easy enough. They produce separate budgets for us to review in November.
Now, its fairly obvious that the intent behind that law is to provide the public with a mechanism to follow the fiscal operations of its public body.
So, when the Borough publishes a November budget for us that indicates a total budget of $150,000, you have to ask yourself who is trying to pull the wool over whose eyes when the Borough then reports a budget of around $589,000 to the state.
There is alot of fancy shifting and "relabeling" of monies here. And, don't be fooled. What was once promoted to the public thirty or twenty years ago as an "efficiency-based relationship" is certainly no longer an efficiency for us.
Times brought changes, yet the multiple ways in which this thirty year-old public administration has devised to reach into all our wallet's pockets have not matured and evolved with the times, nor with the community. Which is why this BOROUGH sees fit to reach freely into OUR water fees, sewer assessments, Chautauqua maintenance assessments, and Borough taxes to appropriate the hundreds of thousands of dollars each year that it takes to keep their long-time friends properly equipped and working fulltime--ALBEIT PROVIDING SERVICES TO PRIVATE ENTITIES OUTSIDE THE BOROUGH. And when it comes time for the borough staff to respond to one of our needs, we are also paying their overtime when they have spent the bulk of their time doing work that benefits someone else.
Now, if Care or Bell were worried about making a living while working part-time for a very small public entity, they absolutely could have taken a second job, or built their own business. Care could have gone and hung his own shingle testing water for other water supplies and plowing. But he would have to tell us that he is doing for others stuff similar to what he does for us, the public. AND, more importantly, he would have to buy, use, and maintain his own equipment. In no uncertain terms is he allowed to use borough, or authority, stuff (including people) to add to his income by doing some type of work for non-borough constituents. It doesn't matter if Kilgore, Chucky, Council or God expressed their approval of Care using public resources to bolster his income and state pension--it simply is not allowed under PA law. It also doesn't matter that its been allowed for decades--its simply not allowed under the law. So, TOTO, you can see why Chucky wants to shoot the messenger.
These "labor and cost sharing realtionships" that Chucky has lead us into are not what the state means when it encourages municipalities to create "efficiency-driven" relationships. Our borough, or Authority, for that matter, can only use its public staff and resources to provide services for us. And, when a neighboring municipality--not a private entity, a MUNICIPALITY, needs something that we can share with it, we can create these "cost-sharing" and "labor sharing" relationships, AS LONG AS WE DERIVE SOME BENEFIT FROM THE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE OTHER MUNICIPALITY. Simply put again, the borough can't enter into a relationship to provide services to a private entity. Period. And, the Borough can't enter into a relationship with a municipality if the taxpayers in the municipality that it serves receive no benefit from the relationship.
In other words, they can't pimp out our public staff and resources just to make sure that their friends have full-time work, plenty of overtime, and expensive equipment to use. But that's exactly what Chuck has created here.
Thirty years ago, you may have had to worry about the quality of work delivered by the public servants that provided your services. Today, however, you have to ask yourself how appropriate it is for our public leaders to suggest or threaten us with slow response times, with poorly plowed roads, or with icky-tasting drinking water if we don't pay their friends for 160, 200, or 240 hours of work per week for what really takes only one or two people to perform in a regular work week, or if we don't fork over the money for equipment and vehicles that a municipality with only 3.2 miles of paved roads has no business purchasing and maintaining.
We really have to ask ourselves if these actions are so appropriate, then why aren't they admitting the Borough's true expenses to us in November? and why aren't they calling out these "relationships" exactly for what they are when reporting to the IRS or to the State?
A taxpayer can profess his love for his friend, but it doesn't change his friend's errant or unethical behavior. Still, I thank Chucky for publically acknowledging that he is reading my posts and that they affect him so much. Maybe he will grow from the experience. maybe not. let's pray for growth.
Again, times have changed, my friend. The 70's are way long gone.
Now, its fairly obvious that the intent behind that law is to provide the public with a mechanism to follow the fiscal operations of its public body.
So, when the Borough publishes a November budget for us that indicates a total budget of $150,000, you have to ask yourself who is trying to pull the wool over whose eyes when the Borough then reports a budget of around $589,000 to the state.
There is alot of fancy shifting and "relabeling" of monies here. And, don't be fooled. What was once promoted to the public thirty or twenty years ago as an "efficiency-based relationship" is certainly no longer an efficiency for us.
Times brought changes, yet the multiple ways in which this thirty year-old public administration has devised to reach into all our wallet's pockets have not matured and evolved with the times, nor with the community. Which is why this BOROUGH sees fit to reach freely into OUR water fees, sewer assessments, Chautauqua maintenance assessments, and Borough taxes to appropriate the hundreds of thousands of dollars each year that it takes to keep their long-time friends properly equipped and working fulltime--ALBEIT PROVIDING SERVICES TO PRIVATE ENTITIES OUTSIDE THE BOROUGH. And when it comes time for the borough staff to respond to one of our needs, we are also paying their overtime when they have spent the bulk of their time doing work that benefits someone else.
Now, if Care or Bell were worried about making a living while working part-time for a very small public entity, they absolutely could have taken a second job, or built their own business. Care could have gone and hung his own shingle testing water for other water supplies and plowing. But he would have to tell us that he is doing for others stuff similar to what he does for us, the public. AND, more importantly, he would have to buy, use, and maintain his own equipment. In no uncertain terms is he allowed to use borough, or authority, stuff (including people) to add to his income by doing some type of work for non-borough constituents. It doesn't matter if Kilgore, Chucky, Council or God expressed their approval of Care using public resources to bolster his income and state pension--it simply is not allowed under PA law. It also doesn't matter that its been allowed for decades--its simply not allowed under the law. So, TOTO, you can see why Chucky wants to shoot the messenger.
These "labor and cost sharing realtionships" that Chucky has lead us into are not what the state means when it encourages municipalities to create "efficiency-driven" relationships. Our borough, or Authority, for that matter, can only use its public staff and resources to provide services for us. And, when a neighboring municipality--not a private entity, a MUNICIPALITY, needs something that we can share with it, we can create these "cost-sharing" and "labor sharing" relationships, AS LONG AS WE DERIVE SOME BENEFIT FROM THE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE OTHER MUNICIPALITY. Simply put again, the borough can't enter into a relationship to provide services to a private entity. Period. And, the Borough can't enter into a relationship with a municipality if the taxpayers in the municipality that it serves receive no benefit from the relationship.
In other words, they can't pimp out our public staff and resources just to make sure that their friends have full-time work, plenty of overtime, and expensive equipment to use. But that's exactly what Chuck has created here.
Thirty years ago, you may have had to worry about the quality of work delivered by the public servants that provided your services. Today, however, you have to ask yourself how appropriate it is for our public leaders to suggest or threaten us with slow response times, with poorly plowed roads, or with icky-tasting drinking water if we don't pay their friends for 160, 200, or 240 hours of work per week for what really takes only one or two people to perform in a regular work week, or if we don't fork over the money for equipment and vehicles that a municipality with only 3.2 miles of paved roads has no business purchasing and maintaining.
We really have to ask ourselves if these actions are so appropriate, then why aren't they admitting the Borough's true expenses to us in November? and why aren't they calling out these "relationships" exactly for what they are when reporting to the IRS or to the State?
A taxpayer can profess his love for his friend, but it doesn't change his friend's errant or unethical behavior. Still, I thank Chucky for publically acknowledging that he is reading my posts and that they affect him so much. Maybe he will grow from the experience. maybe not. let's pray for growth.
Again, times have changed, my friend. The 70's are way long gone.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
finding the leak in our water system
Back in September, our water guy mentioned to me that there seems to be a lot of water usage going on for our limited number of users. He stated that he didn't think it was a leak, suggesting that the abnormally high flow was an intentional draw by someone on the system.
If that was the culprit, I responded, then why not monitor usage. Oh, no, he replied, monitoring is not possible. I guess its too expensive, although he really only inferred that cost was the reason why he rejected the monitoring idea faster than a bullet spins out of a gun. [My subsequent research found that such equipment is really not expensive...more on that later.]
But, let's think about this. We already pay an outrageous amount of fee for water--and water only. While living in another town of similar size--except this other town has a real industrial/commercial component, we only paid $500 a year for water AND sewer. While in Philly, we paid $450 a year, again, for both water AND sewer. In terms of paying for new infrastructure through additionally tacked on fees or assessments, the comparison pretty much washes out--the systems were pretty much the same and neither included some cutting edge technology or water director genius administering the system. No system provided pure drinking water--all still tested with "contaminants" although the quality met government standards.
Here, we pay $455 a year just for water, and another $150 for water main replacement. We pay that regardless of whether our home is even used for less than one day out of the entire year. And, our fearless leaders like to promote the image that the summer demand for water is huge--so huge that it puts excessive burdens on our system and requires full time--year-round, staff to monitor and administer. However, after living here year round and researching actual nembers, I find that assertion suspect, to say the least. That they do not want to put their money where their mouth is only increases my suspicion.
By asserting an unprovenn or unmonitored hi seasonal demand for water, they are able to lead us to believe that we need full time staff when we really don't, that we need a "water director" or consultant when we really don't, and that they need to charge such relatively outrageous fees, when they don't.
Just give them the argument that there is a significant increase in demand during the summer months. What exactly could peak demand be, given that there is no industry here and a little over 200 actual households. Are they suggesting that the infrastructure that they built can't handle the entire number of households and the one commercial enterprise that poses a draw of any significance? I am assuming that they are NOT taking that position, but rather, as indicated above, that they are just saying that the demand is excessive given the number of houses and businesses tied into the system.
So, even if they can prove an excessively high demand during the summer, that only justifies the possible acquisition of a summer employee--not a full-time, year-round employee--or two. And, since Borough Code allows a municipal employee to also provide other services to the community, Mr. Care could be the one hired during the summer, via his private business activities (with the Timber Services company) which also provide water related services--including water quality testing and permit acquisition, to this area. At least then there would be a paper trail and a money trail. I mean, really, why are we-as taxpayers AND again as shareholders, paying him to maintain water quality testing licenses for two of our municipal entities while he maintains the license on his own for his work performed with Timber Services?
I read some where that the Chautauqua, our homeowners association, agrees to share labor costs, etc. with these municipal entities in order to reduce the shareholders' (ergo, taxpayers') overall costs. I ask you to seriously reflect on the scenario presented in this post, and the several other scenarios that I will reveal to you in the next few posts, and ask yourself whether these cost sharing relationships really serve to reduce our costs or whether they just serve to provide our entrenched leaders with the opportunity to justify inflated expenses and staffing, redundant charges, and to rub out any transparency and possibility of follwing our tax dollar through this community. Because the reality I see is that they are really just coming up with ways to take more money from us than necessary to provide us with public services.
Oh, I think that there is a leak some where...but's it not in our water system. Its in the financial relationships and overlap in expenses and staff between our Authority, Borough, and Chautauqua. Because of all this "agreeing" and "sharing" and "transfering", our Borough budget is not any where near the $150,000 that they present to us in November to comply with the legal requirement of accepting a closed budget by December. No, we really have a $550,000 budget. And this number is not created by some third party reviewing our books--its submitted to the state every year by the very same people that submit the $150,000 budget to us.
A $550,000 budget!---no other community with our population (whether you consider our population to be 250 or 500) comes any where close to this number.* Our entrenched ones have taken the last thirty years or so to figure out how to extract nearly ten times more money from us per capita than the average for our "peer group" communities. Ten times! How can they possibly expect us to believe that they can't close the budget, or that they need to raise our taxes, fees, or assessments with this type of revenue generating, redundancy-based system that they have perfected.
And, if our leaders really want to continue to assert such a high seasonal demand for water, let's get to the source. Buy some used leak detection equipment or monitoring equipment. It's cheap--certainly a lot cheaper than making us pay for full-time staff and outrageous water fees annually. To get you on a path to legitimacy, oh fearless entrenched ones, here's a detector for about $1100: http://www.rjmcompany.com/leak-detection-equipment-used.htm
* Shippingport Borough has a population of c. 242, and per capita revenue and expense numbers in the $11,000's (versus an average of $500 for other municipalities with similar populations). To call this municipality an outlier is an understatement. They are home to the first nuclear power plant in the country. And, after it closed in 1982, it became a coal fired power generation plant, placing even more toxic waste within municipal boundaries. Needless to say, having the 44th worst contaminated ground in the country involves serious litigation, mitigation, and, well, money.
If that was the culprit, I responded, then why not monitor usage. Oh, no, he replied, monitoring is not possible. I guess its too expensive, although he really only inferred that cost was the reason why he rejected the monitoring idea faster than a bullet spins out of a gun. [My subsequent research found that such equipment is really not expensive...more on that later.]
But, let's think about this. We already pay an outrageous amount of fee for water--and water only. While living in another town of similar size--except this other town has a real industrial/commercial component, we only paid $500 a year for water AND sewer. While in Philly, we paid $450 a year, again, for both water AND sewer. In terms of paying for new infrastructure through additionally tacked on fees or assessments, the comparison pretty much washes out--the systems were pretty much the same and neither included some cutting edge technology or water director genius administering the system. No system provided pure drinking water--all still tested with "contaminants" although the quality met government standards.
Here, we pay $455 a year just for water, and another $150 for water main replacement. We pay that regardless of whether our home is even used for less than one day out of the entire year. And, our fearless leaders like to promote the image that the summer demand for water is huge--so huge that it puts excessive burdens on our system and requires full time--year-round, staff to monitor and administer. However, after living here year round and researching actual nembers, I find that assertion suspect, to say the least. That they do not want to put their money where their mouth is only increases my suspicion.
By asserting an unprovenn or unmonitored hi seasonal demand for water, they are able to lead us to believe that we need full time staff when we really don't, that we need a "water director" or consultant when we really don't, and that they need to charge such relatively outrageous fees, when they don't.
Just give them the argument that there is a significant increase in demand during the summer months. What exactly could peak demand be, given that there is no industry here and a little over 200 actual households. Are they suggesting that the infrastructure that they built can't handle the entire number of households and the one commercial enterprise that poses a draw of any significance? I am assuming that they are NOT taking that position, but rather, as indicated above, that they are just saying that the demand is excessive given the number of houses and businesses tied into the system.
So, even if they can prove an excessively high demand during the summer, that only justifies the possible acquisition of a summer employee--not a full-time, year-round employee--or two. And, since Borough Code allows a municipal employee to also provide other services to the community, Mr. Care could be the one hired during the summer, via his private business activities (with the Timber Services company) which also provide water related services--including water quality testing and permit acquisition, to this area. At least then there would be a paper trail and a money trail. I mean, really, why are we-as taxpayers AND again as shareholders, paying him to maintain water quality testing licenses for two of our municipal entities while he maintains the license on his own for his work performed with Timber Services?
I read some where that the Chautauqua, our homeowners association, agrees to share labor costs, etc. with these municipal entities in order to reduce the shareholders' (ergo, taxpayers') overall costs. I ask you to seriously reflect on the scenario presented in this post, and the several other scenarios that I will reveal to you in the next few posts, and ask yourself whether these cost sharing relationships really serve to reduce our costs or whether they just serve to provide our entrenched leaders with the opportunity to justify inflated expenses and staffing, redundant charges, and to rub out any transparency and possibility of follwing our tax dollar through this community. Because the reality I see is that they are really just coming up with ways to take more money from us than necessary to provide us with public services.
Oh, I think that there is a leak some where...but's it not in our water system. Its in the financial relationships and overlap in expenses and staff between our Authority, Borough, and Chautauqua. Because of all this "agreeing" and "sharing" and "transfering", our Borough budget is not any where near the $150,000 that they present to us in November to comply with the legal requirement of accepting a closed budget by December. No, we really have a $550,000 budget. And this number is not created by some third party reviewing our books--its submitted to the state every year by the very same people that submit the $150,000 budget to us.
A $550,000 budget!---no other community with our population (whether you consider our population to be 250 or 500) comes any where close to this number.* Our entrenched ones have taken the last thirty years or so to figure out how to extract nearly ten times more money from us per capita than the average for our "peer group" communities. Ten times! How can they possibly expect us to believe that they can't close the budget, or that they need to raise our taxes, fees, or assessments with this type of revenue generating, redundancy-based system that they have perfected.
And, if our leaders really want to continue to assert such a high seasonal demand for water, let's get to the source. Buy some used leak detection equipment or monitoring equipment. It's cheap--certainly a lot cheaper than making us pay for full-time staff and outrageous water fees annually. To get you on a path to legitimacy, oh fearless entrenched ones, here's a detector for about $1100: http://www.rjmcompany.com/leak-detection-equipment-used.htm
* Shippingport Borough has a population of c. 242, and per capita revenue and expense numbers in the $11,000's (versus an average of $500 for other municipalities with similar populations). To call this municipality an outlier is an understatement. They are home to the first nuclear power plant in the country. And, after it closed in 1982, it became a coal fired power generation plant, placing even more toxic waste within municipal boundaries. Needless to say, having the 44th worst contaminated ground in the country involves serious litigation, mitigation, and, well, money.
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