A bit bothered

Ok so I've been sitting since Tuesday night bothered by the last council meeting.  Immediately after the meeting I spoke with a couple of the council members about it and was hoping that would calm me after a bit, but it hasn't so here it is. 

All of a sudden it's been an urgency that we fix our water system.  During the budgeting process we were made aware that we had not planned for any upgrades and the system is 25 years old, but recently it's been "we HAVE to fix it NOW" without any explanation.   Have we violated state law? Is there something we know that isn't being shared? Or is it just not optimum? 

So here is my problem, it's NOT that we need to fix our system (though I'm a bit upset we haven't planned for it), it's that we're not trying to plan this out, but bulldoze it through on a year that EVERYTHING seems to be urgent and costing us so much.  Let me give you a quick run down:

$400,000 - The amount we started out in the hole with the 2011 - 2012 budget
$150,000 - The amount over budget the bid for the sewage in District 4 came out
$  67,000 - The amount approved Tuesday to 'analyze' our water system
$  20,000 -  The amount added to the budget to find a new city manager

These are literally the things off the top of my head that I can remember.  So with just those items we're $637,000 in the red for this budget year.  And as the commercials state, "But wait, there's more!"  Because we still don't have the final cost on hiring a new person, and what travel and expenses for the interviews are going to be, nor the water repairs (I will expand shortly on this), and I still have a problem believing we did all those slots at JB Wells for $220,000 when we spent $150,000 for GVEC. 

Mr. Windwehen made it clear that our water and sewer rates are going to have to be increased to pay for the needed repairs.  I'm ok with that, it's how it should work.  The problem is that it probably should of been raised a long time ago, so that the increase was a minor increase instead of a major increase on our bills.

The second option the city council is going to have, and wait, here it comes...figured it out yet?....RAISE OUR TAXES.

You see, when we were at the budgeting process earlier this year and I heard for the first time that our water system was needing repair, they mentioned that they figured it would take $6,000,000 for us to replace the existing system.  Even if we spread this out over a 5 year plan, that's $1,200,000 per year we have to come up with. 

Oh, and if I understand correctly we are a 'no debt' city, so we can't bond these projects, we have to pay for them as we go, so the only way to accomplish this is to increase revenues to the city.  I don't see us increasing our water rates that high, so if you own a home, or live in Gonzales (yes, renters home owners pass these increase on to you in rent increases), you better be ready, cause here it comes!

You know, it's been a tough couple of years in our house hold.  Business have been off due to the economy, and we've had to make some tough decisions of what we are going to cut in our house hold budget.  There for a while we got down to the bare basics.  I've not seen our city do the same thing.  We've approved needless items like the weather system at the airport.  We've approved out of proportioned spending for our animal control.  We've continued to allowed our rodeo arena to operate rodeos at a loss to the city.  I can go on, but I think you get the idea. 

I understand there are things that have to get done in our city.  We HAVE to hire a new city manager, as this one will only stay a bit longer (his choice not the city councils).  It's my understanding that we were out of compliance with the sewage in district 4, and that had to get fixed.  These are like when your car breaks down and you have to fix them to get to work.

But right now our city leaders need to seriously consider what we are spending and how we are doing it.  Remember a budget is just what we are anticipating spending.  It can be revised up AND down.  If we need to fix our water system, then we need to figure out what we need to cut in order to make up that kind of difference instead of dumping the entire burden on the taxpayers of this great city.

As odd as this might seem, I do believe that our water rates are going to have to be increased.  Again, they should of been increased years ago so that we would of had the money there for our needs now.  That's lack of planning.  But we can not expect the water users to pay off these increases in a year or two, which should of been paid over 10 years. It's an unreasonable expectation of the users of our water system. 

It's going to be an interesting month ahead as the city council gets their report on the repairs at the July 5th meeting.  I hope between now and then they are working hard to figure out where these funds are going to come from.

God Bless,
Dennis Nesser