The current sewer controversy in Leesburg over proposed rates has been well documented in the Times-Union. Due to a lack of metering of water usage, a rate schedule, which is unfair to commercial establishments and churches, has been proposed and passed. This has produced talk of businesses closing, churches removing pews, restaurants eliminating all of their seats, etc., to avoid being billed disproportionately for their usage of the sewage system.
To the extent these commercial enterprises close or churches relocate, the remaining residential users of the Leesburg sewer system will see even higher monthly rates than the currently proposed rates, which are onerous compared to the current rates in Warsaw.
I doubt that any future user of the Leesburg sewer system is opposed to paying his or her fair share of the cost to provide this service, although they may struggle to find the cash to do so in this current economy. What is patently unAmerican, however, is charging someone more or less than the true cost of the services that they utilize.
Assuming it may be impractical or too costly to meter all of the residential properties in Leesburg to measure their water usage, surely this could be done for the 20 to 30 commercial properties that are the users most likely to be overcharged for their usage under the current rate structure. In fact, most would probably be happy to pay for their own meter to avoid the proposed inequitable treatment.
As it stands now, it would appear that the Leesburg school would have the most users in town, surely using hundreds of times more water than the typical residence in a day. Yet, the fee paid by the school will only be approximately 20 times that of a residence occupied by an elderly, single resident. Why should several hundred residences in Leesburg have to underwrite the entire Warsaw Community School System for its disproportionate usage of the sewage system in Leesburg?
If the school board wants to dictate to the town where the location of the new school will be, despite the concerns of the Leesburg citizens to the contrary, then surely the taxpayers of the entire school system should be prepared to do their fair share and contribute proportionately to the cost of installing this new sewer system. If the school paid for its proportionate usage, surely the monthly cost to a residence would go down materially, perhaps by as much as 50 percent. Umbaugh & Associates probably knows this answer already.
Correspondingly, is it a conflict for Umbaugh & Associates to be working on both the rate schedule for the sewer system, while also apparently employed by the probable biggest user, the school system, to help with the financing of the new Leesburg school? Is Umbaugh & Associates working to hold down the monthly cost to residents of Leesburg, or instead to hold down costs to the taxpayers of the school district? These are different constituencies, with different pockets.
The true problem in Leesburg is that an expensive project is being paid for by only several hundred users. Not only does this make sewers much more expensive than in other parts of the area, but also exacerbates the problem of not charging users for their proportionate usage of the system. Only a fair and proportionate system can be respected by the residents and result in fair payments by all users based on their usage.
