Rate increase worrisome

To the Editor:

Well, we did our best and showed up, voiced our concerns and still got the sewage rate (at the full 20 percent) shoved down our throats.

Water raise got tabled because a gentleman (whose intelligence made the lawyer and the board angry) explained in very basic language an alternative to just hitting us with water raise that would be equal to both in town and out-of-town people.

Now, I have a difficult decision to make. Do I try to struggle to pay a water/sewage bill that is going to be $150 or more a month or just walk away from my house?

We already had so many empty houses in our little town.

Sad to think, but at this point, I am thinking that nobody will buy property here with water bills so high and the fact that you can't drink the water and when you shower, you smell like a swimming pool afterward.

Therefore, if you see my property sitting empty, it is because we have abandoned it. The more people that flee, the higher the water/sewage will have to be raised to make ends meet.

This is a nice community to live in, but not big enough to have the revenue to sustain itself and it's only going to get worse. We do have expenses that could be cut to help out a lot. The town clerk position should be a part-time job and we should not be paying insurance for that position and the $300 a month to clean the community building.

I agree someone maybe should be paid to clean it on a weekly basis, but not at that high rate.

Maybe pay someone $25 a week. I do realize that positions in the water and sewage treatment plants do have to be maintained full-time and cuts can't be made there. Perhaps the stipend that board members receive (not sure if they do or don't receive one) should be dropped.

They meet once a month. That would save a little money. They just didn't seem to care about what the citizens said and often, when someone was saying something, they made no eye contact with the person and were looking down or talking amongst each other.

They did not care what the people had to say or their concerns. The decision was already made and there was no changing it.

This will be a time of change and struggle for our little community.

In the end, we will probably fail to exist.

Deborah Montague,

Staunton