Audits a waste of ratepayer dollars
To the editor:
Last Monday Councilmember Kuehn provided a diatribe regarding spending taxpayer dollars for the threatened scrub jay mitigation. Kuehn has indicated he’s against the mitigation for the scrub jays.
I find it interesting that on the previous Monday March 28, I didn’t hear any similar concern from Mr. Kuehn relative to the $200,000 ratepayer’s money that’s being spent for yet another questionable utility audit. It’s obvious that we have politicians who can find spending “justifications” depending upon which way they will be voting.
This time the mayor and some on council are selling the audit to specifically target SE-1, SW-4, and SW-5, a total of about 8500 rate payers. The fact is the target is MWH. We’ve been though this witch hunt previously and both Price, Waterhouse, Coopers and the Department of Justice did not agree with Kessler’s findings when he was previously hired in 2006 and paid $130,000.
We have been homeowners in this city for over two decades; both homes have had city utilities. Neither home is located in the SW section which is where the majority of the work was performed admirably by MWH when compared the work that was done in the 14 square mile SE expansion in the mid to late 1990’s that was often referred to as a “war zone.” Yet, I along with thousands of other utility rate payers who were part of the S.E. utility expansion (Orange, Green, Stripped Green and Blue) are now being compelled to pay for another witch hunt orchestrated by the mayor and his rubber stamps on council.
In summary, these audits are prime examples of wasted dollars, fiscal irresponsibility and the results of the audits only affect a small sampling of ratepayers.
Ralph LePera
Cape Coral