Roger Adams for sewer and water district | Letter

In August 2009, I wrote a letter to Eastsound Sewer & Water District commissioner Rollie Sauer at his request. He had asked me to provide information about my income (including the fact that more than 90 percent of my income is a monthly Social Security disability check). Commissioner Sauer said he would present the information at the commissioners’ regular meeting in order to argue for lower rates for those with income limitations. Having not received a response, I wrote commissioner Sauer another letter in December.

August 9, 2011 7:33 pm

In August 2009, I wrote a letter to Eastsound Sewer & Water District commissioner Rollie Sauer at his request. He had asked me to provide information about my income (including the fact that more than 90 percent of my income is a monthly Social Security disability check). Commissioner Sauer said he would present the information at the commissioners’ regular meeting in order to argue for lower rates for those with income limitations. Having not received a response, I wrote commissioner Sauer another letter in December.

Five months after my first letter, I received a reply from commissioner Sauer. He explained that the Board of Sewer Commissioners “…have varied lifestyles and don’t believe it’s for them to determine what lifestyle is appropriate for anyone…” This is the first time anyone has referred to my disability as a lifestyle choice.

The final sentence of commissioner Sauer’s letter sums up his own feelings, “I can say with certainty, if your needs exceed your capabilities, then it’s time to either increase your income or decrease your expenses, or both … how you accomplish that is up to you.”

Yet commissioner Sauer had little problem bestowing the largess of the Eastsound Sewer & Water District on his fellow Orcas Highlands homeowners. To date, the Eastsound Sewer and Water District has “loaned” $90,000 of Eastsound taxpayer money to drill two wells in the Orcas Highlands.

According to the Islands’ Sounder, “The Highlands board maintains it is not responsible for the district’s outlay of cash.”

In the same article, commissioner Ed Sutton commented that “We had a moral understanding that of course the highlands would pay for the costs…”

Since a “moral understanding” is not your normal loan contract, it looks like a good bet that the Eastsound taxpayers will be stuck with the bill. Commissioner Sauer and the board of commissioners had no trouble making this lifestyle choice for the taxpayers. Too bad; $90,000 would have made a considerable dent in the cost to fix the sewer outfall at North Beach. To this day, the broken outfall pipe is dumping sewer plant effluent on the beach.

Roger Adams

Candidate for Eastsound Sewer & Water District

Position #5

Eastsound