Dear Editor:

 

Last Sundays paper, the article, Levies:  Energy ventures draw fire, City Fiscal Officer, Coleen Balzarini, stated that the city has “lent money” to the electric utility (ECP) but this is not an “annual budgeted expense.”

 

Was no interest charged? The city has spent some $4.5 million on the SME/ECP project.  In addition, in 2005, $1.5 million was borrowed from Interstate Bank. This bank charged an interest just under $100,000 per year.  Eventually, city taxpayers will have paid an additional $1.5 million in interest. When this loan is paid off, it will cost taxpayers $3,000,000.

 

Stating that the ECP loan is not an annual budget expense and presenting the public with partial snippets of the budget can be called the practice of “Creative Voodoo Economics” by city officials.

 

Another example of this unacceptable type of behavior is the existence of the “Black Secret Box.”  The Commissioners must have decided to keep citizens in the dark about city expenditures concerning the utility boondoggle. Apparently, they feel that the public does not have the right to know how city funds are expended or care about its legal costs. They must feel that it is better to be sued by its citizens than by SME.

 

So it has become apparent that Mayor Stebbins and three Commissioners do not seem to be very responsible stewards of our city’s expenses. Rather than calling for a Fire and Police levy, they should have called for a ECP vote. This would have saved our city millions of dollars.

 

Aart Dolman