Instead of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of city staff hours over a five-year period promoting an unnecessary new library and City Center project, Carson City officials should have invested that time and energy in making a real fix to our failing sewer and water systems, rather than the patchwork fixes involved with the upcoming $48 mililon price tag for just the next five years. It was completely irresponsible to suggest spending money we didn't have on frivolous stuff such as City Center when something as basic as sewer and water were neglected.
Federal and state regulations continue to raise the bar on how effluent may be disposed. At some point, distributing processed effluent on golf courses (and into our aquifer) will not be permitted. We will be forced to build a new sewage treatment plant at an even greater cost than today.
True leadership would have 'gotten ahead of the problem' by laying out the facts for our community and definitively addressing the problem today with a new processing plant rather than waiting for the future moment when we will be required to do so.
Blame or 'justification,' depending on how you choose to characterize it, for the problems of massive deferred maintenance has been laid at the feet of prior boards of supervisors, who, it is contended, from a political standpoint, wanted to keep ratepayers 'happy' by keeping rates lower.
Now, of course, we will be paying much, much more for the unwillingness to exercise leadership and keep vital pieces of public infrastructure optimally and legally running for public health.
Another outflow (pun intended) of absent leadership: We will be asked in each of the next five years for another $50 million or so for further fixes which the city still does not properly incorporate into routine maintenance budgets.
Even the much-touted new "reserve" fund of $3 million (We have virtually no reserves for future emergencies at present.)will be spent to refinance debt and represents a pittance of the overall annual budget. Refinancing debt at lower interest rates is a noble goal, but it still leaves no cash reserves to cover the inevitable, non-budgeted equipment failure, leaving us back in a vulnerable position.
Why does Carson City spend so much of its public time and funding on promoting unnecessary libraries; a railroad; a pony express shed; an urban village; a wasteful, failed BRIC (Business Resource and Innovation Center) operation compared to its original goals; ignoring the Ormsby House vacancy problem; and, hiring new, redundant staff (an assistant city manager and an executive assistant to the Convention and Visitors' Bureau)?
Carson City needs to use the 1/8% sales tax available to fund a completely new sewage treatment plant. None of us like to pay taxes, but the $12 million it is estimated to generate should pay most of the cost of the new plant. Will Carson City officials finally rise to the leadership challenge on this issue, or will we experience further unwillingness to address sewer system problems squarely and effectively?