With water billing, Chauncey once again hurts its residents

To the Editor:

How much more will the residents of Chauncey have to endure at the hands of those who are oppressing us with these water and sewer bills? This month, every resident in the village with a water account received not one but two water bills. Besides not being able to add and subtract or calculate correctly the extra 5 percent increase added to residents' water bills for 2012, the residents must also endure the headache of receiving yet another water bill.

If the truth be told, they don't know what they are doing in that water office. All we hear is that the village doesn't have enough money to run the water and sewer plant. Ever since 2007 there has been a mathematical error that was made on the rate sheet that was never corrected.

The second water bill statement mailed to us this month says "due to software error." The rate sheet has been wrong for five years now. They never have and they never will correctly calculate the water and sewer rates until the ordinances and mathematical error have been corrected. What the village has been able to do however was to disband yet another village police department, let their code enforcement go to hell, spend unknown countless dollars on an old worn-out, dilapidated and run-down water plant that they are sinking more money into, and spend thousands of dollars for a useless survey. I have calculated what it's costing us for our water and sewer service. We are now paying $19 for each combined 1,000 gallons of water and sewer usage.

I have a better idea. Just scrap the ancient water and sewer plant, downsize to one or two part-time village workers, eliminate the village administrator position since the village doesn't have a village police department and they don't enforce any village code or flood-plain ordinances. Just mow the grass, fill the potholes once in a while, have your village pow-wow once or twice a month and leave the water and sewer operations to some other service provider.

That will save the village and taxpayers a ton of money. And above all, stop strapping the already struggling residents on low and fixed incomes who are trying to manage these ridiculous water and sewer bills.

Tom Baggs
Chauncey