To the editor:
Over the last six years Amesbury raised the water/sewer user rate four times. The last one occurred Dec. 1, 2011, for over $300,000. The process was as follows:
The special committee opened the noticed meeting at 6:08 p.m., and in 16 minutes it closed, raising over $300,000 in new water/sewer user charges as of Jan. 1 of the next calendar year.
Other parts of the water/sewer user rate chronology are as follows: that in July 2011, over $570,000 in water enterprise free cash was declared by the state Department of Revenue generated by the 2010 user rate. On Dec. 1, the special committee raises both user rates; Dec. 13 the municipal council adjusts downward the fiscal year 2012 spending, reflecting an amended $5.9 million expenditure, down from $6.1 million voted June 14, 2011, for the 2012 fiscal year. It increases the tax rate for 2012 due to the revenue loss by 11 cents, in addition to the user charge increase.
They reduce the spending plan but increase the revenue stream, as I understand it. To me, government is not for profit, and I do know that water/sewer is important to our existence. But be that as it may, we have more $100,000-plus salary/wage earners than I have ever seen since 1973.
To me the foregoing facts are egregious enough! On Dec. 1, I objected to the procedure used at the publicly noticed meeting because the procedure noted in section 3, of 2000-145 was/is indecipherable. Neither the popular name statute has a citation to search to prove the process, not the charter and laws of Amesbury were properly cited in the 12-year-old ordinance.
Who knows what general law chapter it represents unless one was familiar with the reference; with no specific reference, it's like driving to the Super Bowl in Indianapolis without a road map.
Amesbury's first administration authored this "directionless and obstructionless," "automatic giveaway" better and more sure revenue generator than the lottery. It was unanimously approved by the council and must be changed.
In closing, I believe the ordinance abandons the people, picks their pocketbooks with a "carte blanche," approach, a giveaway certainty. Plus, it generates more than $500,000 more revenue than the current spending rate, which may be illegal. Televise all rate hearings!
Government is not for profit. I request the Municipal Council correct and make specific Section 3, providing a properly structured format, and an outcome and audit, and an amended ordinance 2000-145 for the common good within our constitutional principles of "frugality," and the purpose of a commonwealth, the protection of property.
Jim Thivierge
Amesbury
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