Since the Utility Fund that operates the water and sewer plants is an enterprise fund, it is required by law to be self-supporting and to conform to GAAP. It is also required to maintain cash reserves and positive cash flow. What isn’t clear when trying to analyze the Utility Fund’s balance sheets is how much in the way of overhead services are provided by the town and not reimbursed from the fund. That is the only legitimate delta between the in-town and out-of-town rates and no one has ever documented it. But you can bet it isn’t 100%…

1. The mayor is using the same tactic (i.e., “stick it to the rich”) that she used in 2006, prior to the election, to get the 100% surcharge passed with no fiscal analysis. She is singularly the reason the town was sued successfully over utility rates. Her demagoguery continues to pander to the 1500 starry-eyed that voted for her at the expense of all of the rest of us in town, who she most assuredly does not represent or speak for when she natters on about the evil rich people in their gated communities. She cannot play this card again. It was a disaster for the town and I think the rest of the council recognizes it now. The problem is that she will cast the lone vote against raising rates and play herself to be a hero of the little people when, in fact, she is an out of touch politician who would rather sacrifice the financial health of our utility system for her personal gain at the ballot box.

2. She is a hypocrite, trying to blame the “rich people” in River Creek. Truth is that there are more out of town customers living in the decidedly middle class neighborhoods to the east of town than in River Creek. And her household comprised of 2 lawyers living in what was a half million dollar house until recently certainly is more “estate-like” than a single mom working for $24/hour and living in a townhouse with no lawn to water or pool to fill. (As an aside, I’m not sure what the point was of the links to peoples’ houses above. My point was sarcastic, to show the mayor’s decidedly upscale home in context with a house that represents a completely average non-River Creek home for out of town utility customers. Yours was…?)

3. Umstattd is disingenuous at best when it comes to statistics and her past role in this. Her letter would have you believe Judge Horne told the town it was OK to keep the surcharge. She’d have you believe that she had nothing to do with the disastrous lawsuit, and she wants her rank and file to go after the few on the council who are trying to clean up the mess that she and earlier councils made. And she wants everyone to ignore the fact that a gallon of water sold to River Creek costs just as much to make as a gallon of water sold to a Leesburg resident. Instead, she wants you to subscribe to her defective belief system where people she perceives as “rich” should have an obligation to somehow pay more than people of more modest means. Unfortunately, she needs to see point 2. I would guess that the median household income of in-town and out of town residents closely matches the median for Loudoun Co. as a whole. So playing the class warfare card seems all the more desperate and deceptive in that light.

At the end of the day, Umstattd has done immeasurable harm to progress in Leesburg, yet she continues to get re-elected by pulling carefully orchestrated stunts like this. She manipulates an issue to present herself as the lone voice of reason on the council and gets others who aren’t motivated by personal politics to do the hard work for her. She knows what she is doing is wrong and yet she persists. That alone is reason enough to show her the door, independently of the insult this letter represents to our town.

Turf areas and other vegetation should be watered during dry periods to maintain a green color.

Is “should” in essence a mandated “must be watered”? Would one be fined if their turf did not meet some unquantifiable “standard”?

Grass, other than recently laid sod or germinating grass seed, will go dormant in periods of dry weather. Hardly responsible conservation, particularly in the Virginia Piedmont.

Brilliant:

“Encouraging more conservation at a time when we have excess capacity doesn’t seem to make sense,” Curley said of the plan to increase the rate charged for high-volume users.

To quote Ben Franklin:

When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.

post hoc ergo propter hoc:

Shotten residence

Umstattd residence

Estate? Hardly…

Also, does Barber & Ross supply a transportation subsidy to its Leesburg employees to get to Winchester, post-move?