For many years, Grover Beach’s water resource was a shining example of what government efficiency could be. It was an enterprise fund that generated ample monies to maintain itself. Local officials were tempted to tap into its vast finances, but were prevented by law. They did charge more of their salaries to it on the pretense of the work it generated for their departments.
They came upon the solution of borrowing from it in exchange for some paper IOU’s from the city. They used the money for pet projects like the millions spent on the bridge repair at West Grand Avenue and Highway 1. Misappropriation of funds for their projects doesn’t justify passing the buck onto the taxpayers by raising water rates.
Higher water rates will heavily impact many of the senior citizens on fixed incomes. They will discourage businesses from locating to the city. West Grand Avenue looks like a corridor of vacancies. Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on sidewalk beautification will not entice people to shop in Grover Beach, but it will discourage people from shopping at businesses that are operating despite the traffic disruption it causes.
Government knows little about running businesses. It has enough problems running itself, yet it continually spends millions of taxpayer dollars on consultants and facelifts to that end. The money should be spent on long-overdue residential street repair that would attract new residents to the city to shop in the business district. The current city council has no one on it with any business background. They should leave matters alone about which they have no knowledge and quit manipulating the water rates because some city official told them it was the best way to solve financial shortfalls.
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