Democracy In Albany

When the financial house of cards at Enron started to crumble, they got desperate. At one point they essentially sold a bunch of garbage barges to themselves to make it look like they had income they did not have. It kept the ruse going for a little while longer. A few years ago (2003) Mayor Jennings did the same thing to say he had balanced the budget. The city "sold" the waterworks to the water board for $7 million. Instant "balanced" budget. Where did the water board get the money to "buy" the waterworks? Borrowed it. Pretty slick, huh? Borrow $7 million and get to claim you have a balanced budget. Some people call that "lying" and "unethical" and "mortgaging" the future. As evidenced by the Mayor's recent dump deal the mayor calls that "business as usual". So, your water bills will be going up by double digits for quite a few years to pay for this. And remember this disaster is all the Mayor's doing. Its his people all in on the scam.

In September 2005, state Comptroller Alan Hevesi blasted the water system as "very poorly run" for turning a $1.8 million surplus in 1999 into a $10.7 million deficit by June 2004. The system serves 29,000 homes and businesses.

In 1999 the water board was making money. Now they are heavily in debt and you are going to paying a lot more for you water to bail them out. Its important to remember that the debt for the whole city has also doubled under Mayor Jennings. You can't borrow forever. The Mayor is digging a deep financial hole for the city and using unethical tricks to say he has balanced the budget to make it seem like everything is fine. Everything is not fine. Higher taxes and higher water bills are headed our way.

Dump Jennings