Just got back from the Flow presentation at the civic center. About 25 people at the start, closer to 40 by the end. Questions were asked, statements were made, petitions were passed. Some interesting points brought out during the discussion:
1. $42 million for C'dale's water plant is a fire sale price. A new one would cost at least that much to build and that's not including the infrastructure already in place, nor the present value of future monies generated by the plant.
2. A call to the mayor of Urbana, which privatized its water some years ago, asking if Carbondale should do the same, got a strong NO from the mayor herself, who was quite willing to take time to talk about it. It seems after privatization, water pressure declined throughout the city to the point wher the fire dept. had problems functioning efficiently. At least two homes were lost to fire because of insufficient water pressure. Water quality and pressure to private residences declined as well.
3. The average Illinois household pays 36% more for water from a private utility that from a municipality.
The general feeling I got from the meeting was that the attendees prefered either a reinstatement of the property tax or a increase in the sales tax by 1/4% or even 1/2%. The latter would bring our sales taxes equal to Marion.
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ReplyDeleteCould someone explain how the 36% difference was computed? Page III-17 of the link (49 of 137 on the pdf) shows the rates for different types of ownership. I can't figure out how that leads to the 36% figure.
ReplyDeleteNo idea. The 36% figure was on the informational material handed out at the meeting with the linked report cited as the source.
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