Thursday, March 27, 2008

Sewer Incompetency and Irresponsibility

There was a rather annoying editorial in today's Observer-Dispatch: State, federal help needed to fix sewers. It reflects the attitudes of the people running government in Oneida County -- and tells us why we are at the bottom of the country, economically:

Our leaders are incompetent and irresponsible:
  • Incompetent because they created the situation complained of.
  • Irresponsible because they demand that the state and federal governments pay to fix the mess that they created.

My "Consent Order Primer" series explains the sewer system and what went wrong:
Part 1: Plumbing Part 2: Legalizing Pollution Part 3: Laws Working Together Part 4: Dissecting What Happened.

Our local officials at the County and Town levels need to be held accountable for what happened ... County legislators from the City of Utica and nearby Villages are perfectly positioned to do this, because their constituents are paying to fix a Town-created problem from which they derive no benefit.

We deserve better government.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Town government has the responsibility to ensure that developers respect all common public utilities. This disrespect for the sewer district utility is a telling confirmation of indisputable government misconduct. Notwithstanding, the $66 million NY State Department of Environmental Conservation consent order may plummet Oneida County’s bond rating back to reality, but soliciting the Federal and State taxpayers to subsidize this local governmental malfeasance is preposterous. Perhaps sanctioning the blameworthy county and local governments for allowing these developers to build without regard to any of the general public’s sewer utility, is akin to criminally colluding to commit usury of a public utility. Other towns located within Oneida County have had to install runoff water retention ponds and still others have had to bond in order to finance a sewage treatment plant before they could develop and grow their local economy. This begs the question as to how could this portion of the county simply receive a pass in terms of not having to follow suit with complying with the sanitation laws?