LeesburgTalk

In an ongoing attempt to keep Leesburg residents up to date on what is going on with the water and sewer rate donnybrook, we offer the following email correspondence which was sent to residents of Potomac Station over the weekend. It contains some interesting information about the rate proposals and the ongoing legal struggle between the town and out of town residents over the water and sewer rates. It also provides an interesting view of the tactics of our neighbors who are suing the town. (Just remember who we have to thank for yet another lawsuit against Leesburg…not our neighbors!)

Subject: Important! Update on Leesburg Water and Sewer Rate Activities

To All Potomac Station Residents:

The following message was sent to our Board president, Henry Twentier, over the weekend by Brian Shiflett, our primary contact person for the utility rate lawsuit.  You will note that the Town Council’s proposed rate structure will affect both our Town and County residents. We encourage EVERYONE to contact Leesburg Town Council members, attend the public hearing next Tuesday, July 28, and/or discuss this issue with your neighbors who may not have Potomac Station website accounts.

———-

Just to let you know, today [Friday, 7/17] is the day the Town of Leesburg is due to file their petition for appeal with the Virginia Supreme Court.  Earlier this week, the Town Attorney reiterated that the Town is planning to file the petition for appeal as part of their two-track response to the April 17, 2009 Circuit Court order.  Assuming no change in the Town’s plans, we’ll have copies of the petition for appeal distributed in the next couple of days.  The other track is the rate adjustment activity that is now taking place in Town Hall.  Monday [7/13] night’s Town Council work session was the first public discussion of the Town’s rate making plans and consultant’s recommendations.  The Town retained Draper Aden Associates to perform a new rate study, one that will produce rates that the Town Council plans to approve August 11 in time to meet the September 1 date when the Town can no longer enforce its current rate schedule.

The Town plans to run a public notice in the Loudoun Times Mirror [this] Wednesday, July 22, which will advertise a set of proposed water and sewer rates and will invite public comment on those proposed rates at a public hearing on Tuesday, July 28.  We do not know what exactly the Town will propose, but on Monday night [7/13], the Town Attorney put the following numbers out for Town Council consideration (all of these numbers represent percentage increases over the current rates):

In Town Water Usage: +36%
In-Town Sewer Usage: +44%

Out-of-Town Water Usage: +10%
Out-of-Town Sewer Usage: +60%

Fixed Charges, Water and Sewer (all customer classes): +15%

Naturally, one will take offence at these numbers, depending on their perspective.  In-town customers will be shocked at the level of proposed increases in their rates, considering they just went through four annual increases beginning in 2006.  Out-of-town customers will wonder how these significant increases comply with the recent court order to decrease out-of-town rates.  Well, the Town believes that by simply doing another rate study, using the ‘utility method’ to calculate out-of-town rates, is sufficient to comply with the court order.  I think you can understand that they heaped a lot of crap on the cost pile to come up with the new set of out-of-town rates.  Our legal counsel has seen the video of the Town Council discussion, and they have a transcript of some of the more offensive portions of the rate presentation.  I will not delve any further into our legal strategy in this email.

We do need to begin communicating with our neighbors that they need to make their opinions heard by the Town Council on or before July 28. They can do so by submitting emails to the Town Council or speaking in person at the public hearing.  There is information and contacts posted on www.fairwaterrates.com.  Folks might look to us to guidance about what to say to the Town Council members.  Others may chime in, but in my opinion, the Town’s out-of- town rate proposal does not comply with the court order, because it is not consistent with the findings of the Court in the water rate case.  Obviously the Town thinks they have some sneaky legal tricks up their sleeve.  We need to tell the Town Council that the proposed rates are still unfair, unreasonable and inequitable.  We need to tell them to stop violating the law.  They need to know the out-of-towners still have fight in them.  While largely symbolic, our protest is necessary.  Thanks for your help in getting the word out.

Brian Shiflett
Representative of Loudoun Fair Water

The Downtown Improvement Association is briefing its plan for George Mason University’s campus in downtown Leesburg at its annual membership meeting tonight at 6 PM at Lightfoot.

Jan Zachariasse will be briefing a draft of the DIA’s response to GMU’s request for information. A big plus from the DIA is that they’re switching their dues to be only $50 a year, down from the $1000 buy-in it took to get in the door before. If you’re interested in the success of downtown, this is a great opportunity to get involved.

As noted last week, Leesburg is planning on raising water and sewer rates. For some, it may be by as much as 60%. The question is whether or not it’s an inescapable increase, or if casting an eye towards expenses and deferred system upgrades might result in a more tolerable increase. Here are some things to consider.

The town’s water and sewer systems are financed using an enterprise fund, which has several requirements placed on it. It must operate independently of the town’s general fund, it must retain specific cash reserves, and until recently, it must be able to underwrite its own financing for capital improvements. In short, it is supposed to be a self-sustaining, independent business entity from the ongoing operation of the town. However, it is intertwined with the town’s finances, since it relies on town staff for things like payroll, maintenance, IT services, etc. It has also relied on the town to underwrite its last bond issues, ostensibly to obtain better financing rates, but the net effect is to make Leesburg tax payers liable for any default on the bond payments.

Many may not realize this, but Leesburg has cadillac of a water and sewer system. It’s much nicer than most of our neighbors, and has more than enough capacity to service all of Leesburg and a lot of the surrounding communities. State and federal requirements place some additional burden on the expense side of the water and sewer equation, with more stringent water standards leading to ongoing upgrades and expenses at both plants. And these expenses often come with little or no extra money to implement the mandate. Unfortunately, we are now in a situation where driving a cadillac and having to incur its maintenance costs is going to bite us if the town council and staff don’t find a credible way to reduce the costs.

With a downturn in home and new business construction, the system is far over the capacity requirements currently needed by the town. It is also not receiving hook-up fees and availability fees that would normally be paid by developers to offset the costs of providing this increased capacity. Consequently, we are stuck paying for all of the equipment, buildings, etc. to support a much larger user base that is actually using the 2 plants. While the incremental operational cost to provide this overcapacity is relatively small, there is no revenue currently being received from this excess capacity, so it’s a net loss to the town.

There are public hearings on July 28th and August 11th to discuss the proposed rate increases. The proposed rates are coming from an outside consultant whose business is advising local utilities, and it is working with the town staff to propose rates that will cover all of the revenue shortfalls and cover the current and planned capital projects. But there are very likely lots of ways to reduce expenses or increase revenue that are not being considered. If you plan on speaking at one of these public hearings, you might consider asking about the following.

• What capital projects are being cut or terminated to reduce costs?
• What reductions in staff have been considered to reduce costs?
• What overhead costs have been cut to reduce expenses?
• Has the town considered selling excess water and sewer capacity to the county or to private developments using wells and septic systems?
• Has the town considered selling a portion or all of the water and sewer plants to private operators or to LCSA in return for a share of operating profits?
• Has the town considered contracting operation of the plants to a private entity while retaining ownership?

At the end of the day, the bulk of the expenses behind these utilities comes from capital improvement projects and the bulk of the revenue was planned to come from an increased user base and fees, supplemented by the existing customers. In the absence of the increase in users and fees, it begs the question of why we have ongoing capital projects related to capacity. Inquiring minds want to know!

Here’s a quick reminder about tonight’s Bluemont concert at 7 PM at Dodona Manor. This evening is perfect for a little hot jazz from the Martinsburg Jazz Orchestra and some hot Thai food from Thai Pan just across the street. They do great carry-out!

This week at Demonstration Garden at Ida Lee Park in Leesburg the Master Gardeners are making sure that the watering system is working properly. We have had a very dry few weeks and the garden needs supplemental water. Please check your garden and make sure that your vegetable and flowers are getting about 1 inch per week. You can do this by setting out cans or containers when you water and measure the amount of water that the container collects. Be sure to avoid getting water on the leaves of the plants when you are watering. Try to deliver the water right to the roots of the plants. And water for longer times at less frequent intervals. In other words, water for 30 minutes twice a week, rather than 5 minutes every day. This helps the plants develop deeper roots and then will require less watering in the future.

Tomatoes may develop “blossom end rot” because of the lack of water at this time. This is an inability of the plant to take up calcium because it needs water to do this. If you notice the bottom end of the tomato looks rotten discard that tomato and the next ones should be fine. It is usually the first tomatoes that suffer with this problem.

Also you can check out www.wtop.com for tips on late blight that seems to be showing up in tomato plants purchased at some large stores.

The Master Gardeners have harvested the last of the peas, the first beans, first cucumbers, first blackberries, and the first artichokes. They are still harvesting beets, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic and lettuces and kale.

In the vegetable garden they are weeding, staking the pepper plants, and spraying ”Surround” (an organic clay) on cucumber vines, squash vines and tomatoes for insect control. The sweet potatoes vines are having to be fenced in because they are doing so well.

In the ornamental beds, everything is in full flower – very beautiful! Especially the cosmos, lady bedstraw, butterfly bush and black-eyed susans.

Now is the time to cut back your mums if you want to keep them from flopping over after they bloom. This keeps them smaller and tidier but delays the blooms.

Remember to “dead-head” all the flowers that are past  their prime if you want to keep you plants flowering.

If you have any problems, please feel free to give the Master Gardener Help Desk a call at 703-771-5150, or email at ext107mg@vt.edu

Today is going to be a light day for updates on LeesburgTalk as most of the team is enduring an all-day car ride to cooler climes. But if anyone runs into a good story in the course of the day, please, please, please post a comment here or send an e-mail to the “info” address and we’ll do our best to whip the iPhone WordPress software into making a post or two remotely.

And as always, we’re glad to have anyone interested in writing articles for LeesburgTalk come on-board as a contributor. The more, the merrier! Please see the “for Contributors” link in the upper right for more details.

An arrest has been made in the first robbery of the BB&T bank which occurred on May 29th. Michael Moore, 47, (hopefully not the tubby filmmaker) of Baltimore was arrested on July 13th. It will be interesting to see how, if at all, these recent crimes tie together.

Also, here is a link to a (large – 11MB) PowerPoint presentation given by Leesburg Chief of Police Joe Price to the town council on the events of last Friday. Not a lot of new data, but some additional details you might find interesting.

Thanks to Frank Holtz of Leesburg’s Crime Prevention Council for passing these details along to LeesburgTalk.

One of the great things about Leesburg is the number of live events that happen every weekend. The trick is being able to find them all. It used to be a real challenge to find live music in town and to learn about the local talent. A few years ago, a group of downtown merchants got together with local musicians and started Acoustic on the Green, a series of live performances on the lawn in front of town hall. What started as a somewhat informal series of outdoor performances on Saturday nights has grown into an amazing concert series that provides lovers of live, local music with a great way to see their favorite artists right in the middle of downtown Leesburg.

The series is free, and open to anyone who can get their blankets and lawn chairs spread out fast enough to claim a spot. Concert start at 7 PM and usually last until around 9. Since it’s right next door to the town parking garage, and right around the corner from numerous restaurants, it’s easy to make an evening of it. Stop in to La Lou’s, China King, or Leesburg Restaurant for a quick bite, catch the performance, then wander up to Shoe’s for a cup of coffee and dessert before calling it a night. Can’t beat that for a nice summer evening in Leesburg!

Close

For those who missed the town council work session on Monday, they saved the best for last. The short story is that the council is considering up to a 60% increase in water and sewer rates. Leesburg Today has a more complete article on what is going on.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should say that I am a member of the town’s Utility Rate Advisory Committee (URAC). And in the interests of being fair to all concerned, this rate hike has absolutely nothing to do with the URAC or its recommendations to the council. In fact, 5 months of hard work by the URAC established a 2-year rate plan that accommodated out-of-town customers and moved the town to a much more fair, tiered rate plan that rewarded conservation and forced heavy water users to pay accordingly. Unfortunately, that set of URAC rate proposals was never seriously considered by the council and has been discarded in favor of proposals from outside paid consultants.

Here’s the rub. At the end of the day, these new rates are being designed to ensure there is enough income to operate the town’s water and sewer plants. But what they are failing to address, as any competently run business should address, is the expense side of the equation. Not once during the URAC deliberations were we allowed to address the expenses for operations and capital improvements. And every dollar of expense saved is that much less income that is required from water and sewer customers.

Anyone speaking at the public hearings on July 28th or later should certainly consider asking what is being done to rein in the huge cost of capital projects for water and sewer, along with asking what changes have been contemplated to reduce operating expenses. I’m guessing not much since it is a lot easier to just raise the rates than it is to cut costs.

This week’s round-up list includes two smaller, but very nice restaurants. The first on is Thai Pan (previously Thai Royal) situated inside the Liberty Gas Station on Harrison St. in front of the County building. This place is hard to find and small, but the food is awesome. The fresh garden roll appetizer is deliciously fresh and minty, and my favorite entrée is the Panang (tender chicken in a rich curry peanut and coconut milk sauce with carrots). Very yummy! The drunken Noodle are also a popular choice and on any dish you can request the spiciness you would like, the perfect option for a wimp like me. Portions are very generous, I usually end up bringing a doggy bag home and it’s not very expensive.

Our second small but nice restaurant is Lesher’s Hot-Dog at 26 South King St. You better look up for the sign to not miss the place! First of all, we have gone several times to this place and it’s always super clean and the staff is very friendly. The menu is not very large (3 kinds of hot-dogs and 2 choices of burgers if I remember correctly) but the food is good. I really like the chili hot-dog. They burgers are well cooked and juicy. Unfortunately they do not serve fries, but they do have a variety of chips and sodas. I hope one day this place will add a few mores items on they menu like more toppings and some side dish. That would make it a lot more interesting place. But you can get 2 hot-dogs and a soda for about $5.30, which is not bad for lunch.