You should worry about your future water bills

Recently City Council members went on an illegal tour of the water plant which I was denied access. I viewed the tour of the water plant by council members as a meeting since one council member all but stated at the recent special meeting to increase water rates capital items were discussed.

 

But that being said – let discuss why this is not in the public interest. I have reviewed several of the capital plans of past years and after listening  to the current presentation of capital items to justify water bill increases, I now know why I was not allowed on the tour.

 

Bottom line the proposed increases, are not all that well justified, it appears they are just a grab of our money. There appears to be numerous errors and mistakes in the documents and what was presented.

 

Let me elaborate on a few. The supervisory control and data acquisition system, which appears to be the control system for the plant. The 2007-2008 plan showed the city spending $400,000 to review the system, the draft plan in 2010-2014 shows $850,000 for improvements , the recent presentation asks for $1.5 million and interesting The Capital project letter sent to our congress people in December from Alderperson Tisdahl showed the number at 15 million. Looking at the photo since I was not allowed on the tour, its clear it needs replace but I have little confidence anyone here has a clue what they are doing. I hope we did not spent $400,000 studying the replacement of this control system a few years back that clearly would have been a waste of our tax dollars since a 30 year old  electronic control system should be just replaced, not upgraded.

 

Mr Stonebeck ( superindent of the water plant) mentioned the need for 5 million dollars in possible structural problems, and hiring a forensic engineering consultant. Looking at the one photo – it certainly did not look like a problem one would need to spend ½ million dollars to study. Looked like reinforcing steel that was placed with inadequate concrete cover and corrode and the concrete spalled.  But then again I could not attended the tour.

 

I was amused it was stated, the water plant in a project started to remove concrete it thought was topping and was actually removing the structure, which begs the question what proper engineering is supporting the work? Also the picture of the under side of the filter plant roof was misstated as being called a slab, in the presentation when it shows precast concrete planks. The webs had spalling concrete, here again a simple repair, not millions. Ofcourse one council member ( Cheryl Wollin) stated she saw the reinforcing, as if it was a major problem, that we need to spend millions on. In fairness to Mr Stonebeck he did state he thought this work might be questionable – what I am concerned about is would the 5 million be added into the water rate increases? That is are we padding the increases to users bills?

 

On the emergency interconnect with Wilmette, some of Council were pleased that Mr Stonebeck stated this project might be looked at favorable by the state and feds for stimulus funding, since I questioned its value at a recent AP&W meeting.  During that statement several of them looked at me, as if Mr Stonebeck statement some how justified their lack of oversite on this issue.

 

 

 But the reality is Wilmette has a  small plant water- how is it going to supply Evanston and its customers, not for long so the project benefits Wilmette not us, so if we see no funds from the feds the project is of marginal value, interesting enough I was told the water plant has no back up system for it chemical injection, so it appears to me money should be spent on other items which is far more important to the operation. Interesting this back up system is not included in the capital plan.

 

I was very interested in the graphic showing the 100 year old water lines all over town which was flashed up on the screen rather quickly. What interested me is how the almost 3 million dollars a year of water main installation will coordinate with street work. That is will there be enough street work and funding going on to justify the dollars collected in water bill revenue to support the installation of the water lines?

 

Bottom line Marty ( our budget director ) is holding off borrowing funds for capital projects this year from the city budget as a cost saveings because they don’t move that fast, but I suspect there will be no problem adding additional fees to the water bills and holding the dollars in slush fund, that could be potential transferred to the general fund!

 

I believe staff needs to show us a much more detailed plan of how the  water line work coordinates  with street upgrades. That is there is no point over charging customers for water repairs when there may not be enough funds to replace the streets the water lines are under.

 

It was mentioned the city need $700,000 to repaint the large water tanks, a picture was shown and the comment was made kids were throwing rocks at them and damaging the paint. ( a small corrode spot was shown)  I was more trouble when it was stated that they should be painted every ten years, it appears to me they are not specifying the correct paint system, thus wasting more of our money.

 

They also mentioned the homeowners radio meter system needs to be replaced, first time it has showed up. It appears it was not in any previous capital plan.

 

Another interesting issue was a green roof was recently  put over a garage at the water plant at the cost of $70,000 recently. One has to question the value of this high cost, over a garage roof , not even an occupied building. This was a 900 sq. ft roof. Clearly such a small roof could have been redone with a energy star rated white roof for less than $20,000. Even a green roof for this size building should have been less than half of what they spent. Interesting enough given the city of Evanston poor maintenance , it is likely in a few year it will be dead. Remember the so called priaire garden at the east fire station on Central street it turned to weeds and was cut down.

 

It is clear to me a increase in water bills is needed, projects are need, but I do not have any confidence in the council oversight to protect our interests, It is clear council members are quite willing to rubber stamp the whole program and not ask any intelligent questions. Liz Tisdahl stated at the special meeting “  All the capital expenditures at the meeting were justified” clearly that is not the case.

 

Council members support of illegal meetings only reinforces my view of the council inability to lead. Also it is clear council members are not exercising the proper review of any of the capital plan items but just rubber stamping them. Nor does it appear they  are checking that any of the work is complete, from year to year, thus we may never have the water lines replaced.

 

 I suspect most council members are more interested that a speed bump gets  placed in their wards than to understand the capital budget of the water department. I truly was disgusted some council members would want a study to expand the water plant to sell more water when they do not have a clue what is going on with the existing capital resources.

 

Clearly taxpayers who pay for the water and sewer fees here need to question the proposed 40% increases, since our current council members will be all too quick to rubber stamp them.