Follow the money

October 15, 2012

Richmond, Iowa

To the Editor:

On Oct. 18, less than three weeks before an election which is likely to change the character of our county government, the majority of our present county supervisors will be holding a public hearing in a desperate attempt to rush the county into a completely unnecessary multimillion-dollar sewer project for the village or Richmond. They want to amend their agreement with Regional Utility Service Systems (RUSS) and, among other things, pour additional tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars into this dysfunctional bureaucracy.

I noticed an interesting change in the new agreement. The user fees for RUSS?s lagoon sewer system are certain to be quite high, and the old agreement calls for Washington County to reimburse RUSS for any unpaid fees. RUSS?s proposed amended agreement, however, has the following additional words: ?All unpaid Rates and Charges shall constitute a lien upon the real property served by the Richmond Sewer System and shall be collected in the same manner as general taxes. ??

So, when a poor family in Richmond, or a widow living on a social security check, cannot pay RUSS?s high user fees, their home can be sold out from under them for nonpayment of taxes!

This outrage speaks volumes about both these supervisors and RUSS. It reminds me of an old folk song based on the legend of Depression-era outlaw ?Pretty Boy Floyd,? who was said to have used the proceeds of his bank robberies to pay poor people?s mortgages and save their homes and farms. The song ends with the words:

?As through this world I?ve wandered

I?ve seen lots of funny men;

Some rob you with a six-gun,

And some with a fountain pen.

?As through your life you travel,

As through your life you roam,

You won?t never see an outlaw

Drive a family from their home.?

Why would our county board of supervisors be so attracted to an outfit like RUSS?

At a recent candidate forum, when asked why the county waited so many years before turning to RUSS with Richmond?s ill-defined problems, supervisor Adam Mangold said that the county had waited until 2007 for a multimillion-dollar grant/loan to become available.

But why a multimillion-dollar project?

All that was ever needed was to ask homeowners with inadequate septic systems to upgrade them to meet reasonable standards. Low-cost financing is available, and the county has ways to help poor people comply with sanitary regulations.

But our county supervisors decided to wait for millions of federal tax dollars for a big project ? and to drive families from their homes!

Well, there it is in a nutshell. This is all about money ? lucrative contracts ? with RUSS as a trough where contractors and engineering firms can feed on taxpayer money. Follow the money and discover whose interests our county supervisors have really been serving all along. Surely not ordinary citizens!

David Rosen