It's beginning to look a lot like payback time.
Payback for the $800,000 Quakertown had to give Bucks County Water & Sewer Authority earlier this year. No matter that Qtown forked over the eight hundred grand to avoid a lawsuit for overcharging customers for seven years. It looks like someone else is going to pay.
Come on down, Richland residents. Well, about 1000 of you, anyway. You lucky Richlanders who are "served" by the Quakertown Water Department. You are about to have your rates raised as much as 120%! Not Quakertown residents. Just the Richland 1000.
How did RT residents get on QT water? The Richland Water Authority was created after those residents had already hooked up to Quakertown's system. They are stuck there unless the borough releases them. That isn't about to happen.
Richland residents pay $28 per quarter for the same service that Q'towners get for $25. But that is about to change. Man, is it ever!
Borough Council is preparing a proposal for the state's Public Utility Commission, asking that their out-of-town captives get rogered for $62 each quarter. Qtown can increase rates for borough residents on its own, and has planned a 60 percent jump. But the PUC regulates outside customers, and has to approve any increase for them.
Why is this happening? The Quakertown bigwigs only want to talk about the 4-year, $10 million sewer and water line improvement program they just began, to update the 100-year old town system. The cost is about $730,000 a year.
All they want to tell us is that water rates were last raised in 1991, and are among the lowest in Bucks County. "We haven't increased rates in so long, we're playing catch-up, " said Council Vice President James Roberts.
Well, Jim, it's easy to keep rates low when you just don't do much capital improvement for, say, a century or so. Real businesses replace items that wear out, like sewers and water lines, on a regular schedule. And they put aside money every year for that purpose. Quakertown simply deferred everything into the twenty-first century.
Instead of having each generation share the costs of maintaining the borough's system, $10 million is being laid on today's residents. And, most harshly on people who are not residents.
Council could have avoided this controversy by doing the necessary upgrades over the years, or by keeping sufficient money in their Water Fund. But instead, they have drained that fund every year to fatten their General Fund, giving the Borough a better "bottom line". Now they have to borrow to do the work, and everyone will pay for the next 20 years.
But there is another reason why rates are skyrocketing. And Borough Council isn't saying much about this one. They were pretty unhappy when their little secret was revealed in March. You may remember that they were caught overcharging BCWSA by $2 million since 1997, and settled the claim out of court for $800,000.
At the time I wrote, "If you think seven years of savings was a good thing, watch what may be happening. This is a mess that could haunt residents for a long time to come." I was wrong. It isn't just going to haunt Quakertown residents for a long time to come. It's going to haunt Richland residents.
The Borough is not just passing along the costs of repaying BCWSA to its own citizens, the ones who vote them in - and out - of office. They are foisting a major part of it onto people who have no voice. No recourse.
Why are QT and RT residents charged different rates for exactly the same service? Council justifies the inequity by saying that local folks already pay for the department's costs in their taxes. That may be so, but many of the water wells and storage tanks are located in Richland. Township residents are paying for their own water to be piped round-trip, from Richland to Quakertown, and right back to them!
The incredible irony here is that Quakertown stuck the rest of Upper Bucks with years of overcharges, which were never refunded to the homeowners, and are now rogering the "outsiders" again to make up the deficit! You gotta hand it to Council, they know how to go to bat for their constituents.
So what can Richland residents do to fight this taxation without representation? Dumping tea into Boston Harbor has already been used.
The PUC can not act without local public hearings. When they are held, attend. In large numbers. Qtown must justify the huge disparity, and there just does not appear to be a real reason.
Ask the PUC how much of the Borough's General Fund costs are charged to the Water Fund, and how much Water Fund cash is sent back to the General Fund. And tell the PUC that Richland residents should not be rogered to make up for Borough Council's misdeeds.
No one can accuse Richland Supervisors of tooting their own horns. There have been two important rulings in the YMCA matter, but no one in the township made them public.
Both involve Bucks County Judge Mitchell Goldberg. First, he denied the request for reconsideration made by the two families suing the township and YMCA. That means his decision permitting the lease of the land for the recreation center stands.
Second, the other half of the case, challenging the township-approved land development plan, has been reassigned, from Judge R. Barry McAndrews to - Judge Goldberg. This has to be crushing to the two families trying to prevent the new Y, because Goldberg already decided in his first opinion that the land was not open space, and could be used by the Y. He's not likely to have a change of heart.
Two more big steps for all local residents who have been waiting patiently for the YMCA facilities, which have been promised as accessible to everyone. One more defeat for the two families.