Part Nine of a series on the Columbia city budget COLUMBIA, 9/18/10 (Beat Byte) -- Lies, damn lies, and rate hikes.
By voting for bonds like those issued for sewer upgrades in 2008, hadn't Columbia residents also signed on for city utility rate hikes to pay off the bonds? KFRU radio host
David Lile put this question to Columbia City Manager
Bill Watkins last week, after the fib had been making the rounds.
Yes, voters had approved those rate hikes, Watkins explained. It was all part of the deal when the bonds -- debts incurred to build new systems and upgrade old ones -- passed with large majorities.
But if they were following City Hall's well-orchestrated sell job, voters approved
no such thing. Bonds are routinely sold in Columbia/Boone County as a way to
avoid rate or tax increases for the foreseeable future. Pass the bond, no tax hikes. Pass the bond, no rate hikes.
The
2008 city sewer bond was no exception. A high-falutin citizens
group hand-picked by then-Mayor
Darwin Hindman made sure this message got out, while local media organizations touted the promised savings without questioning its false economics.
"The city is asking voters in Proposition 1 to approve paying for sewer improvements using bonds," wrote Columbia Tribune reporter
Kat Hughes in a
March 2008 story. "That means city sewer users would pay back the amount over a
long-term period rather than paying upfront through
higher rates during the next few years."
Those higher rates, according to a
diagram in the Tribune story:
a 450% increase over just three years (
$11 average sewer bill in 2007 to $50 average by 2010), so outlandish it wouldn't have been even remotely feasible.
It makes me sick to my stomach to keep reading about the Fleecing Of Columbia by those who are supposed to be working for the citizens.
Excuse me while I go puke...........again.