Unconscionable: A 102% Rate Increase!

Last year our Town “leaders” raised our water rates 72%! The traditional media was nowhere to be found and not only ignored this exorbitant rate increase, but gave The Paul and his Stepford Board a pass with this outrageous increase. What’s worse, soon after that increase The Paul said there would probably be another one in the next budget. Why? Why punish our beleagured residents numerous times instead of just having one increase? Does The Paul and his Board think it will be better received by saying the increase will only be 72% instead of 102%?

Victor Carosi, the Town Public Works Commissioner we had high hopes for, had stated earlier that the rates would need to rise to cover numerous costs: the increased cost of water, additional operating expenses (we were unable to find out what “additions” there are), capital expenses to replace components of the water infrastructure, and amazingly, to pay back money it borrowed to cover expenses in 2010 and 2011 from the Town. The Paul was negligent yet again and didn’t tell us about this in 2010 when the borrowing began? More importantly, why didn’t he do something about it then?

The public hearing on a proposed increase in water rates will be continued and has been rescheduled for Tuesday, March 20.

 ABG believes The Paul and his Stepford Board of guilty of malfeasance, negligence, incompetence and deceit. 

Another guilty verdict rendered against The Paul, was with the Dromore Road case and the incorrect Zoning maps the Town has been using for decades. In fact, now that they were found guilty in court, the Town Board has asked the Comprehensive Plan Committee, not the Building Department or Zoning Board, to inspect the existing town zoning maps and correct any errors it may find. Really? Why bother? The Paul and his feckless Board change zoning at his whim or at the request of any of the The Paul’s favored developers!

The Comprehensive Plan Committee was tasked with coming up with a Comprehensive Plan for the Town. They didn’t volunteer to fix all the ills of the Town or The Paul. We respect the work the Comprehensive Plan Committee has done so far and are supportive of the work they will continue to do. The difficulty with constantly increasing their tasks list is that they’ll never get the Comprehensive Plan finished and the Town will continue to operate with haphazard and poorly planned proposals. The biggest issue we see with them doing all of this work is that they have no authority to implement any changes, and that they can only make recommendations. So the Town is under no obligation to adopt any of their recommendations, which will continue to help The Paul and his the developers over Town residents; all the while continuing to abuse our Town and it’s residents.

While we would like to see the Comprehensive Plan Committee offer a final rendition and an ultimate proposal, it will apparently take a bit more time. ABG wants the proposal to be the best it can be and are confident that’s what the Committee will submit. What The Paul does with it remains to be seen. We can only hope.