Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Authority Eyes Quarter Million in Unpaid Bills




For a meeting that only lasted 30 minutes, Tuesday's Pottstown Borough Authority meeting sure faced a lot of financial issues.

First, there's the $5.2 million in water and sewer line replacements planned for the coming year.

For those who have watched the streets getting dug up this year, try to make peace with the fact that there is more coming.

Before you get too upset, recognize that this five-year effort will end up costing about $28 million but will not incur any debt. It is a "pay-as-you-go" effort.

Second, consider that much of the water mains they are replacing was laid in 1880.

That makes it 135 years old, laid when the Panama Canal was begun, James Garfield was elected the 20th president of the United States and, by happy coincidence, the first sanitary sewer lines separate from storm sewers, were laid in Memphis.

I'd say Pottstownians got their money's worth from those pipes.

Also significant financially, was Utilities Administrator Bob Plenderleith's announcement that the water shut-off letters are going out to the borough's landlords who have not paid their bills.

He said there are more than 120 letters going out and that the unpaid bills add up to more than $250,000.

We'll have more on that in coming issues of The Mercury.

In the meantime, here are the Tweets from that short-but-pithy meeting:


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