Times Editorial : Revisionist history
Posted on Tuesday, October 2, 2007
At a budget meeting Saturday at Fayetteville's Drake Field, Mayor Dan Coody and most of the city's aldermen were busy figuring out a way to best raise and allocate taxpayer dollars for 2008. In all likelihood, the city's budget will be $ 1. 5 million short as 2007 comes to a close, city staff estimates. Although the city's $ 10 million in reserve funds are set to pay the difference, nerves are a bit frayed these days as the mayor, council members, city staff and others figure out ways to afford the expense of city operations.
Such was the setting when Ward 2 Alderman Nancy Allen remarked that many of the people she talks to tend to think there is a "big pile of money"within reach of the city's leadership. Alderman Allen added that Fayetteville residents believe the city is "trying to clean up the sewer debacle."
That didn't set well with Mr. Coody.
Coody decried Allen's use of the term "debacle"to describe Fayetteville's $ 186 million program to expand and upgrade the city's sewage collection and treatment system. The taxpayer- and ratepayer-funded project is paying for construction of a new sewage treatment plant in west Fayetteville, massive renovations to the existing treatment plant on the east side of town, and millions of dollars worth of upgrades to the city's extensive underground collection system.
Coody and his administration are chagrined that this newspaper regularly writes about the project's troubled past. Those paying the bill will remember that voters in 2001 approved a 3 / 4 cent sales tax to fund a bond issue up to $ 125 million for the project. The project in its entirety was scheduled to be complete by 2005.
Well, that didn't happen.
In a chain of events and / or discoveries that still defy an understandable explanation, Coody's administration lost control of the project. Residents were eventually saddled with additional sales taxes to deal with a project that had ballooned to $ 186 million. Voters backed up the plan, largely because they had a gun - or sewer pipe - pointed to their heads: Pay through a sales tax or see sewer rates skyrocket.
On Saturday, the mayor compared the improvement project's "money pit"qualities to building a house, which so often costs more and takes longer than anyone anticipates. Yes, that's true to an extent - but the price tag on a new home doesn't usually increase by a third overnight. Mayor Coody must be willing to admit that Fayetteville's wastewater improvement project is an extreme case. And even when a homeowner's project gets out of hand financially, nobody's left happy about it. It should be no surprise nobody was left happy about Fayetteville's sewer debac... er... mess.
After pointing out that the effort has otherwise gone very well, and does not face any lawsuits or involve any bankruptcies, Coody added that exploding costs and a way-behind schedule are this project's "only hiccup."
Maybe Coody had in mind Charles Osborne, who holds the record for the longest case of hiccups at 68 years. Otherwise, we think Coody's choice of words was far, far less accurate than Mrs. Allen's.
It's entirely understandable that the people working hard on the sewer project today - and apparently doing a good job - get sick and tired of hearing about the meltdown, if we can use that word, that was the sewer project between 2001 and 2005. Yes, we wish it hadn't happened, either. But it did, and taxpayers and sewer customers will be paying millions more than originally planned or approved for years to come.
As the years pass, it's undoubtedly tempting for politicians to rewrite history into a more favorable version of events. Call it a head-inthe-toilet approach. It just leaves us feeling flushed.
The debacle is worth remembering, if nothing else than to be a constant reminder of what it takes to get the job done and not create an environment in which a new "debacle"can happen. The credit for what Coody views as a hiccup, though, rests with Fayetteville's taxpayers and sewer customers, the ones paying for today's progress and yesterday's debacle.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online