Chatham Concerned Taxpayers

GREECE IS IN TOUGH SHAPE, BUT THE U.S. IS IN THE WORST SHAPE

2010-07-26T17:03:31Z

Who's in worse shape, Greece or the U.S.?

As disturbing as it is to say, it's America. The world's leading financial newspaper published in the U.K. The Financial Times today carries a report of an analysis jointly conducted by American and European economists. If the world thinks Greece is teetering, what must they think when the numbers show the U.S. is in worse condition than Greece? The "gap" between future revenues and the costs and other liabilities that are accruing is huge.

A short time ago the National Review presented findings indicating that the "real" liabilities of the U.S. that will have to be paid now and in the future amount to at least $130-$140 trillion (that's trillions, not billions) dollars, without including the costs of Obamacare. It isn't today's $13 trillion that's troubling, it's the number that is ten times that.

Though the analytic approaches differ, the conclusions are similar. Spending has to be cut drastically at all levels of government, national, state at local. Entitlements have to be reduced or eliminated. There is not enough money to spread around, however one might wish to do just that.

Read this and be very frightened.

You won't feel better after reading the National Review piece, either.

Fiscal conservatives must rally to the call to preserve American as a land of opportunity and promise for our children and grandchildren.

While the national numbers are truly scary, we can't ignore the overspending challenges in Massachusetts and Chatham.

Unfunded pension and health care liabilities and an explosion of health care and Medicaid costs at the state level; unfunded pension and health care liabilities in Chatham and an explosion of debt from about $30 million to $300 million and debt service on the property tax from $2.7 million to $14 million.

There's no room anymore for sweetheart public union contract deals with built-in increases. Spending has to be cut. Government has to be pared down. Just because Chatham has a lot of expensive property that can be taxed doesn't mean the people writing the checks can afford any more extravagant spending.

GET A "PEER REVIEW" OF THE DEP SCIENCE BEHIND ITS CLEAN WATER DEMANDS

2010-07-10T15:49:23Z

Do Chatham and other Cape Cod towns really need Big City Sewers for healthy coastal waters?

A study by a very qualified group of Orleans scientists and engineers of nitrogen contribution to Pleasant Bay shows that all the septic systems ringing the bay only contribute 1% to the total nitrogen in the bay. See the attached summary of the report, p. 8, in particular.

Pleasant Bay Synopsis and Bios.pdf

Spending hundreds of millions on centralized sewer systems in Orleans, Harwich and Chatham will therefore in all likelihood have no effect on Pleasant Bay water quality, but a devastating effect on town budgets. What if similar testing in other Cape embayments also show that the septic nitrogen contribution to total nitrogen is miniscule?

The easy assumption that too much nitrogen in coastal waters is the source of all the ills it is blamed for has never really been proven. It now also appears to be the case that septic nitrogen may be such a minor contributing factor that spending billions on the Cape for centralized sewer systems could be a massive waste of precious dollars, be they from property taxes or sewer fees.

Consequently, the Board of Selectmen of Orleans has now asked all Cape Cod towns to join it in asking the National Academy of Sciences to conduct an objective "peer review" of the science behind the findings and recommendations of the Massachusetts Estuaries Project (MEP) commissioned by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and put forward by the DEP as the baseline of what is required of each town to make its waters healthy. Read the letter: Orleans selectmen letter for peer review.pdf

It is an amazing fact that this methodology, which may lead to expenditures of as much as ten billion dollars for Cape towns, has never been independently peer reviewed. The DEP so far has refused to allow that, but that position cannot stand. The towns and their taxpayers who will be responsible for paying the bills have a right to demand validation of what they are being told is what needs to be done.

So far, seven or eight of the 15 Cape towns have agreed to join with Orleans. Responses from others are being awaited, including Chatham.

Chatham Concerned Taxpayers has urged the Chatham selectmen to join with Orleans and the other towns. Click here to read our letter: CCT ChSel July 6 2010.pdf here

Chatham alone among Cape towns has embarked on a centralized sewer system plan developed by its Town Manager for all watersheds said to be contributing septic nitrogen to coastal waters. This was done without questioning the state numbers, without testing the state's conclusions first in at least one seemingly troubled area ("hot spot"), without evaluating alternative, modern technology that removes septic and groundwater nitrogen cheaper, faster and better, and without obtaining a town meeting vote on the Town Manager's plan, which could cost property taxpayers close to if not more than half a billion dollars, depressing all other spending for operations and capital projects for decades. " How could this have happened?", one might well ask.

Nonetheless, it is not too late for the Chatham selectmen to join in the request for a peer review. The best way to assure taxpayers that town officials aren't wasting their money is to get an objective review of the science behind the state's numbers.

Since the Town Manager's plan is to pipe all contributing watersheds in one coordinated effort (110 miles of sewer piping) over 20 years, it could be 25 years, according to Stearns & Wheler and DEP, before improvement, if any, would be seen.

Rather than spend half a billion dollars first and then find out the massive spending has done nothing to improve bay waters, it is, to say the least, prudent to get an objective review of the basis for the whole plan.

While the National Academy of Sciences is conducting the peer review, the town can conduct an objective evaluation of modern technology and systems that are now available that can remove nitrogen from septic systems and groundwater far more efficiently, far less expensively and with far quicker results (some immediate) than the centralized system the Town Manager has chosen. If the NAS confirms the MEP/DEP science, then a plan, taking into account all available technology options, including these modern, less expensive ones, can be voted on by a fully informed town meeting and implemented. And results will be known a lot sooner than 25 years from now.

GROWTH IN SPENDING IS "UNSUSTAINABLE"

2010-07-10T13:49:36Z

Virginia's Governor Bob McDonald, speaking in Boston last night, had it right:

"There's a growing sentiment of the citizens of this country that the rate of spending, the rate of growth in spending at every level of government, is unsustainable."

The Obama administration seems intent on bankrupting our grandchildren and Massachusetts state government is chronically running deficits and raising taxes.

In Chatham the Town Manager lets public union compensation keep rising and apparently thinks overrides are the way to solve his overspending.

On top of that, the Town Manager has launched a massive capital spending program for a Big City Sewer that isn't needed to keep Chatham's coastal waters clean and healthy. The challenge could be met for half the cost and in a way that national environmental organizations such as Clean Water Action say is better environmentally. Not only that, these new systems do a better job of removing nitrogen and other contaminants from groundwater with permeable reactive barriers. Hinchey is committing taxpayers to spending about half a billion dollars for a Big City Sewer without (1) questioning the cost, (2) looking objectively at less expensive alternatives or (3) even questioning what the state's scientists say is needed to be done to keep Chatham's waters healthy. Other Cape Cod towns are seeking validation of what the state scientist have come up with through a "peer review" by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). That's the basic question: What is it that we in fact have to do to make sure Chatham's waters are healthy? Chatham shoujld join with those other towns in the petition to the NAS. That's step one in fiscal prudence.

Read it all.

WHY IS CHATHAM SO EXPENSIVE?

2010-06-13T20:43:18Z

What this writer is saying about California public employee unions applies to Massachusetts and Chatham.

[V]oters turn resentful as they sense that:
-- They are underwriting, through their taxes, a level of salary and benefits for government employment that is better than what they and their families have.

-- Government services, from schools to the Department of Motor Vehicles, are not good enough - not for the citizen individually nor the public generally - to justify the high and escalating cost.

Chatham chronically overspends and taxes more than it needs to. It's because of fat public union contracts negotiated by the Town Manager. It's because of extravagant, costly projects pushed forward by the Town Manager, especially in the case of his massive, totally unnecessary centralized sewer system.

Cleaning up Chatham's waters could be done at a fraction of the cost of the Hinchey sewer, but voters never had a chance to consider these less expensive and environmentally preferable alternatives favored by the EPA. Only the Town Manager voted.

This disregard of taxpayers is what makes Chatham just about the most expensive community on Cape Cod. For example, our neighbor Orleans, about the same size as Chatham in population and geography, spends 30% less per person than Chatham does on government, excluding schools. That's about $10 million for this year alone that could have stayed in taxpayers' pockets.

Public unions are bleeding voters dry. Voters are waking up and they are angry. Fat pensions, elite health plans and compensation to town employees that is higher than what most of the people paying the bills have to live on are too much and need to be reined in.

Imagine, right after the stock market crash of 2008 the Town Manager of Chatham signed a union contract giving union employees a 7% raise which they are enjoying right now while townspeople are suffering from the economic collapse and fearing a double dip recession.

We need public officials who put the taxpayers first, not negotiate contracts like that.

We don't need to run up our debt ten fold to build monuments certain public officials fancy.

It's up to the Chatham selectmen to protect the taxpayers and put an end to these outrages.

Public employee unions on the defensive Peter Scheer San Francisco Chronicle Sunday, June 13, 2010
For public employee unions - those representing police, firefighters, teachers, prison guards and agency workers of all kinds at the state and local levels - these are the worst of times.

Despite record high membership and dues, and years of unparalleled clout in state capitols, public-sector unions find themselves on the defensive, desperately trying to hold onto past gains in the face of a skeptical press and angry voters. So far has the zeitgeist shifted against them that on one recent weekend, government employees were the butt of a "Saturday Night Live" skit, and the next day, a New York Times Magazine cover article proclaimed "The Teachers' Unions' Last Stand."

Public unions' traditional strength - the ability to finance their members' rising pay and benefits through tax increases - has become a liability. Although private-sector unions always have had to worry that consumers will resist rising prices for their goods, public sector unions have benefited from the fact that taxpayers can't choose - they are, in effect, "captive consumers."

At some point, however, voters turn resentful as they sense that:

-- They are underwriting, through their taxes, a level of salary and benefits for government employment that is better than what they and their families have.

-- Government services, from schools to the Department of Motor Vehicles, are not good enough - not for the citizen individually nor the public generally - to justify the high and escalating cost.

We are at that point.
]]> In California, government-sector unions, once among the most entrenched and powerful labor groups in the country, mainly have themselves to blame. For most of the postwar period, they were a force for progressive change, prospering by winning over public support for their agenda.

In the 1970s and '80s they backed laws like the Public Records Act and Brown Act to make state and local government more transparent. Because unions enjoyed broad-based political support, efforts to enhance government accountability and responsiveness to voters were seen - correctly - as benefiting the unions and their members. The public interest and public employees' interests were aligned.

But the unions switched strategies. Although the change was gradual, by the 1990s, California's government unions had decided that, rather than cultivate voter support for their objectives, they could exert more influence in the Legislature, and in the political process generally, by lavishing campaign contributions on lawmakers. Adopting the tactics of other special-interest groups, government unions paid lip service to democratic principles while excelling at the fundamentally anti-democratic strategy of writing checks to legislators, their election committees and political action committees.

While not illegal (in fact, such contributions are constitutionally protected), the unions' aggressive spending on candidates put them on the same moral low ground as casino-owning tribes, insurance companies and other special interests that have concluded that the best way to influence the legislative process is to, well, buy it.

Public unions' distrust of voters, and abandonment of government transparency as a union objective, could be seen in their successful push, in the mid-1990s, for a change to the Brown Act, California's open-meeting law. The new provision ensured that the public would have no access to collective-bargaining agreements negotiated by cities and counties - often representing 70 percent or more of their total operating budgets - until after the agreements were signed.

What happens when voters and the press have no opportunity to question elected officials about how they propose to pay for a lower retirement age, better health benefits for retirees' dependents, richer pension formulas and the like? The officials make contractual promises that are unaffordable, unsustainable and, in general, don't come due until after those elected officials have left office. In the case of Vallejo, this veil of secrecy and the symbiotic relationship it fosters led to municipal bankruptcy.

The biggest blow to unions' public support has come from revelations about jaw-dropping compensation and pension benefits. Police have received unwelcome attention for budget-busting overtime and the manipulation of eligibility rules for "disability pensions," which provide higher benefits and tax advantages. Other government employees, particularly managers, have been called out for "pension spiking": using vacation time, sick pay and the like to boost income in the last years of employment, which are the basis for calculating retirement benefits.

Such gaming of the system boosts starting pensions to levels that can approach, and even exceed, employees' salaries. Some examples from the reporting of the Contra Costa Times' Daniel Borenstein: A retired Northern California fire chief whose $185,000 salary morphed into a $241,000 annual pension; a county administrator whose $240,000 starting pension was 98 percent of final salary; and a sanitary district manager who qualified for a $217,000 pension on a salary of $234,000. At a time when most Californians anticipate an austere retirement (if they can afford to retire at all), government pensions are a source of real voter anger.

The harm to the credibility of public employee unions from these excesses is made far worse by the unions' attempts to hide them. The revelations about pay and pension abuses have surfaced only as a result of lawsuits. (The First Amendment Coalition has been a plaintiff in several of these cases.) Public employee unions, could have, and should have, taken the lead to stop abusive pension practices, which mainly involve managers and other senior staff. Instead, they have vigorously opposed disclosure of individual employees' salaries and pension amounts.

Public employee unions need to reboot. The old strategy of cynically buying political influence and excluding the public from decision making has run its course. Unions can rebuild public support by recommitting to an agenda of open government in the public interest. If they don't, they will be further marginalized.

Peter Scheer, a lawyer and journalist, is executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a California nonprofit dedicated to government transparency and political accountability.

UPDATE: See also this illuminating article.

CHATHAM'S MAD SPENDING BINGE

2010-06-07T16:37:45Z

Things are downright scary. The nation is stalled in a deep recession and joblessness is growing. More people are fearing they will be worse off in the future than ever before.

Yet what is Chatham doing? Maintaining its growth in town spending but shoving what it couldn't fund this year into next year's budget, when the situation will be just as bad, but made worse by this doubling up of deferred costs. On top of that it has launched a 20-year sewer construction program that will drive the town's debt from about $30 million to over $300 million! is this the time for a debt explosion?

Does Chatham have to do the sewer now? No.

Is there a rush to clean up the waters? No. Under the town's program no improvements are expected till 25 years or so when the project is finished. Not only that, Chatham is a guinea pig for the state program's proposed solution for reducing nitrogen, which might not even show any improvement in coastal waters. For the Town Manager to embark upon a total plan for the town costing hundreds of millions of property tax dollars rather than by proceeding incrementally to test out the state's proposed solution in one or two hot spots first is inane.

Can any government agency force Chatham to act now? No. Since this is an unfunded mandate, no government agency can force Chatham to act against its interests.

Will the Conservation Law Foundation sue Chatham? No. Chatham is so far ahead of all other towns in its planning it's the last town CLF would sue.

Will Chatham wind up lagging behind other Cape towns in addressing the problem of excess nitrogen in bay waters? No. Chatham is years ahead of the 13 other Cape towns that have excess nitrogen problems. Some of them are exploring less expensive and better environmental alternatives, others are hoping for state or federal subsidy assistance and some just do not consider the problem a priority in light of their tight budgets and other demands.

More sensibly, Orleans and other towns first want to be satisifed that the plan developed by the state DEP with the scientists in Dartmouth will do the job. For years they've demanded a peer review of the science, which the state and the scientists have refused to allow. Now that demand is growing insistent. Why spend billions for something that might not do the job? It makes sense to make sure it works before committing to such massive expenditures.

When did Chatham town meeting vote to approve a sewer program costing $300-$400-$500 million? It never has. The town manager pushed a vote through town meeting in May 2009 for an upgrade of the treatment plant but didn't tell anybody the upgrade would build the treatment plant out to its planned 20-year capacity in just two years. Instead of just enlarging the treatment plant to handle the few hundred properties being added to the existing system, the Town Manager authoritzed an enlargement for ten times as much, enough to process all the presumably affected watersheds in town. As a consequence, any engineer will tell you taxpayers will be forced to fund the rest of the sewer pipe extension program or else have a malfunctioning, cost-inefficient and sub-performance treatment plant. To convince town meeting members the costs would not be too onerous, the town manager provided town meeting members with false numbers reflected in scaled down bar graphs which were supposed to show what the real costs would look like.

Should Chatham taxpayers be worried about what the economic bad news looks like for Chatham as well as the nation? Absolutely. Savings, dividends and interest payments for Chatham households are all down. Huge tax hikes at the federal level beginning next year are a certainty, so, no matter what, incomes will be slashed. States are cutting local aid and raising taxes as well. This is a time for caution.

What should Chatham do? Two major things need to be done to get the spending situation under control: First, renegotiate public union contracts to reflect the reality of the financial situation of Chatham homeowners. Automatic built-in increases should be a thing of the past. The Town Manager has refused to do this. Second, revise the capacity plans for the treatment plant expansion downward so it will handle efficiently and effectively the properties now on the system and those being added with the $20 million for piping voted at the May 2009 town meeting. Then stop and join Orleans and other Cape towns in demanding a peer review of the state's science. During that review period, objectively and fairly examine the alternatives to addressing the nitrogen removal (however it needs to be done) less expensively and hopefully less disruptively. (The EPA and national environmental organizations favor alternatives such as clusters as better environmental choices.) Following the peer review and its conclusions and the examination of less expensive and disruptive alternatives , the entire resulting plan should be put before a fully informed town meeting or a vote.

Here's a knowledgeable observer's pessimistic view of the next few years.

America’s jobless picture is alarmingly bleak
By Mort Zuckerman in Financial Times
June 7, 2010

We are drifting. We take comfort in bits of good news, but we are in dangerous waters; the Great Recession is being starkly revealed as a global crisis with the US, the traditional engine of recovery, sputtering on every cylinder. The US government responded with dramatic financial support by transferring money to the household sector. But outside of these transfers the personal income of Americans is still declining; the residential market remains stagnant at best; consumer growth is nominal. The only real energy in the economy has come from the cessation of inventory liquidation, which is now the main factor in rising industrial output and any modest improvement in the economy.
]]> The mood of US households is despondent. In May only 11.3 per cent believed they would see their income rise in the following six months, while 16.6 per cent thought they would see it decline. This is the first time in over four decades that more people believe they will be worse off than better. Any massive fiscal and monetary stimulus that might reverse the trend is likely to be politically unsustainable given the growing concern over the exploding national deficit.

Wherever you look the scene is bleak. Leading economic indicators fell in April – unusual at such an early stage in the up-cycle. Jobless claims were up by 25,000 to 471,000. And up again above expectations in the first three weeks of May – raising the four-week moving average to a level consistent with 100,000, or more, net job losses. For the past several months, claims have been nowhere near the levels of 400,000 and less that in the past were consistent with sustained job creation. We are not enjoying the normal cycle of economic improvement. If we were, employment would already have reached a new high and made up all of the jobs lost, as it did during the previous postwar recessions. This time we remain short of the old peak of employment, by an astounding 8.4m jobs. One in six Americans is either unemployed or underemployed. This is not a normal cycle when compared with a typical recession, which sees no more than 2m to 3m jobs lost.

Research by David Rosenberg, chief economist at Gluskin Sheff, reveals jobless statistics behind the headline numbers that are downright scary. More than 6.5m people (more than 45 per cent of the jobless) have not worked for 27 weeks or more, compared with 3.2m this time last year.

Wages are falling; wage cuts are spreading as employers continue to curb costs and remain reluctant to hire. And the amount of excess labour continues to increase. For example, the April payroll surged by 290,000 jobs but the labour force soared by 805,000. In effect, jobseekers are overwhelming the number of jobs that are being created. The broader definition of unemployment, which includes partial unemployment and people who have applied for a job within the past year, is roughly 17 per cent. The headline unemployment rate is back up to slightly under 10 per cent, but this covers only people who sought a job in the previous four weeks.

What is the result of an excessive number of people seeking work, with an average of 5.6 people vying for each job opening? Wage deflation. Average hourly pay has not budged since the turn of the year, including one month in which we had a 0.1 per cent decline in average hourly earnings, something that has not happened since April 2003.

This is an unnervingly jobless recovery. After the kind of strong growth in gross domestic product of approximately 6 per cent we had in the fourth quarter of last year, we would normally anticipate job gains of 250,000 a month. Instead we had an average of 31,000 new jobs in the January and February reports – an unprecedentedly minimal growth after such a strong GDP quarter.

We are going to have to develop policies and government support to deal with the long-term jobless who become less employable the longer they lack a regular job. And long-term unemployment has gone from 2m in June 2004 to 6.7m in April 2010. We may have as many as five to eight years of moderate economic growth. To create the 12m jobs to get back to full employment for both the unemployed and new entries into the labour force, when job losses have not even come to an end, seems almost impossible.

The writer is editor in chief of US News & World Report and chairman and co-founder of Boston Properties.

NEW JERSEY LEADING THE WAY ON SPENDING REFORM?

2010-05-14T17:21:10Z

Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey is the kind of official you need in office in tough times when the habit of overspending seems unbreakable -- whether it's in Washington, on Beacon Hill or in Chatham Town Hall,

Non-emergency projects should be postponed until better economic times return. Grandiose projects should be scaled down to what's needed and deferred if no emergency exists. Fat public union contracts have to end. New taxes, no way. Spending must be cut to avoid increasing taxes by overrides.

So listen to what Governor Christie has to say.

Gov Christie calls S-L columnist thin-skinned for inquiring about his 'confrontational tone'

ELECTION WIN FOR NEW SELECTMAN TIM ROPER HERALDS ERA OF FISCAL DISCIPLINE

2010-05-14T15:35:42Z

Tim Roper has won and was installed this morning as the newest Chatham selectman.

Let's hope that a new era of openness, civility and concern for taxpayers is about to begin.

The chronic overspending of town officials has to be reined in.

At last, the truth about the Town Manager's hugely expensive Big City Sewer project and its costs to taxpayers will come out.

It's not too late to downsize to solutions which can clean up Chatham's coastal waters at far less cost, with far less community disruption and in a way that the EPA and national environmental organizations agree is better for the environment. We should listen to what the EPA and national environmental organizations say, not Big City Sewer promoters like Stearns & Wheler, which grow rich on centralized sewers.

A centralized sewer for Chatham is a too expensive White Elephant inappropriate an unnecessary for a small, semi-rural town like Chatham.

And it's not too early to start working on fiscal 2012 spending. The idea that overrides are inevitable in fiscal 2012 must be rejected.

Chatham taxpayers took the first step at town meeting this past Monday by rejecting the Town Manager's plea for more taxes. The second step has now been taken, electing a selectman dedicated to fiscal restraint. The march to fiscal discipline has begun.

NEW BLOOD, FISCAL DISCIPLINE NEEDED ON CHATHAM BOARD OF SELECTMEN

2010-05-11T15:46:43Z

The Chatham Board of Selectmen has failed miserably in keeping costs under control. It rubber stamps whatever the Town Manager proposes for spending almost 100% of the time. For this fiscal year ending in June, the Town Manager’s deficit spending plan went up more than $2 million by raiding emergency and off budget funds to support pay raises of 6% and more. Only Sean Summers tries to rein in spending. The two selectmen running for re-election are stand out spenders.

For fiscal 2011, another difficult year for taxpayers, not much is being cut but a lot is being shoved into fiscal 2012, which is shaping up as a fiscal disaster. And on the table is a demand for even more money by raising hotel and meals taxes. Voters at last night's annual town meeting showed their growing anger at overspending by voting NO on both taxes advocated by the Town Manager and Selectman Whitcomb, who is running for re-election.

Chatham and Orleans are about the same population size, but Chatham spends 34% more per person on its government. And costs for grandiose new projects, twice as expensive as they could be, are set to explode. Chatham’s debt is on track to be the highest in Massachusetts on a per person basis. The Hinchey sewer, if built as planned, will push Chatham’s debt from about $30 million to over $300 million. Does anyone think taxpayers won’t feel that?

There are other reasons why change is needed.

When citizens try to raise serious questions about saving taxpayer money at selectmen’s meetings, they are shut off, slandered, insulted, intimidated, treated with contempt and threatened with bodily harm. One citizen stood up at a recent selectmen’s meeting and said that in her 40 years in public office at the state and town levels she had never seen citizens treated with such disrespect. And a Chatham-born citizen, shouted down by public officials at another selectmen’s meeting, sadly stated, “Our trust is broken.”

We don’t need rubber stamps. We don’t need selectmen who show contempt for and insult citizens. We need selectmen dedicated to serving the interest of the people who live in Chatham and pay the bills. The status quo is unacceptable. Let’s make a real change.

There are two challengers. Tim Roper is a smart businessman who has met a payroll. He knows the town and is fiscally prudent. He will make an outstanding selectman.

Mike Onnembo deserves the chance to show he will make the tough decisions that the incumbents running for re-election have demonstrated they will not make.

WHAT WILL THE HINCHEY CENTRALIZED SEWER REALLY COST TAXPAYERS?

2010-05-04T14:15:04Z

There has been a great deal of confusion about what the MINIMUM likely costs of the centralized sewer that Town Manager Hinchey has chosen for Chatham will be.

Most of the confusion was created by Mr. Hinchey's presentation of 47 PowerPoint slides at a selectmen's meeting on February 23rd and compounded by a "sewer cost calculator" put on the town website using the same misleading data. A great deal of irrelevant information was included in the slideshow which added to the confusion.

What taxpayers want to know is what costs we are being committed to. Mr. Hinchey did not answer that key question.

What numbers Mr. Hinchey' said the centralized sewer would cost are substantially less than what Chatham Concerned Taxpayers estimate the MINIMUM estimated taxpayer costs will be. The difference is almost $200 million. CCT has prepared a simple chart to show what costs Mr. Hinchey left out or got wrong. Click on the chart to enlarge it.

What do these staggering costs mean for property owners who are being sewered and those who are not?

Again, CCT has prepared an easy-to-read chart so any property owner can calculate what his MINIMUM costs are likely to be. Click on chart to enlarge.

We say MINIMUM projected costs because long-term projects such as these always run into "unforeseen" costs. Boston's Big Dig's costs grew from about $2 billion to about $20 billion, as our retired accounting expert warned us.

Sewer property taxes will rise steadily over the next 20 years, stay high for ten years and then begin a slow decline for the last 20 years of financing. They will be a burden on town budgets and needed capital projects for five decades.

The tragedy for Chatham taxpayers is that cleaning up Chatham's coastal waters of the excess nitrogen that is blamed for deteriorating water quality can be done for far less cost than the massive overkill of a Big City Sewer.

No less an authority than the federal Environmental Protection Agency says alternatives such as cluster systems can save taxpayers many, many tens of millions of dollars. Says the EPA:

Cluster systems can achieve significant economies of scale to provide high levels of treatment at costs significantly less (25 percent to 50 percent) than centralized sewer systems.

EPA also notes (p.6-7, EPA publication cited above) that cluster systems used with permeable reactive barriers (such as are now being proposed by Lombardo Associates in Falmouth and Mashpee) placed at water's edge to intercept groundwater plumes can reduce costs even more by removing nitrogen from all sources, including fertilizers and animal waste. Cluster systems also lend themselves to an incremental approach, to test out the state-supplied but untested solutions to see if indeed they work before investing hundreds of millions of dollars.

There is one taxpayer cost that is usually not mentioned, but is important. With a centralized sewer system, taxpayers' investments in acceptably functioning septic systems will be destroyed. Chatham homeowners collectively stand to "lose" more than $50 million they have already spent.

In Chatham's case, instead of a half billion project, it could be a $250 million project or less, still expensive but substantially less of a burden on town budgets and taxpayers over the next five decades. Cluster systems with permeable reactive barriers can do the job cheaper, better and faster without tearing up 110 miles of streets and installing 88 large pump stations and thousands of seven-foot high grinder pumps.

These other options are readily available to Chatham, but the Town Manager has been immovable in his opposition to considering them. Sadly for taxpayers, the selectmen have agreed to support the Town Manager's opposition, refusing even to conduct an objective evaluation of such alternatives as Falmouth and Mashpee are now doing.

The people who will pay for such intransigence are Chatham's taxpayers. The environment will suffer as well. Many fear that upping the flow of treated sewage from 100,000 gallons a day to 2 million gallons a day will overwhelm Cockle Cove Creek and result in serious damage to the marsh, Buck's Creek and Sulphur Springs.

Others fear that Chatham will become a hub for wastewater from Harwich, Orleans and Brewster as Dr. Duncanson envisioned at a selectmen's meeting in January.

Chatham is on the wrong track because it appears that Town Manager Hinchey decided years ago he wanted a regular, old-fashioned Big City Sewer in Chatham. Developments in nitrogen removal that are being evaluated and installed elsewhere in Barnstable County and in other coastal communities along the East Coast and the West Coast are being ignored.

Whether we like it or not, Chatham taxpayers seem destined to spend at least half a billion dollars for a centralized sewer that isn't needed to clean Chatham's waters and may well become to be seen as the White Elephant of Cape Cod.

Unfortunately, the White Elephant is now being railroaded into Chatham. The train is not departing.

The least we can do to acknowledge the contribution of Town Manager Hinchey is to call this "The Hinchey Memorial Sewer." We will remember him when he's gone for the costs he left behind....

DON'T BE FOOLED, ACCOUNTING EXPERT WARNS CHATHAM TAXPAYERS

2010-04-01T13:53:06Z

A retired executive now living on the Cape but not in Chatham who spent years professionally concerned about municipal projects and their costs has sent us two warnings that we thought should be shared with you.

One warning came several weeks ago and one just a day or two ago after state bureaucrats defended their review process of this hugely expensive, wasteful, unnecessary, environmentally damaging centralized sewer project. Excess nitrogen that detracts from the health of Chatham's coastal waters can be removed at far less cost and in an environmentally superior manner by alternative means which are in common use throughout the United States and are preferred by the EPA, national environmental organizations such as Clean Water Action and the Clean Water Fund and the Massachusetts Conservation Law Foundation.

So what is our retired accounting executive warning Chatham taxpayers about? Here are the two messages we referred to:

I have been retired for several years but continue on as a consultant in the preparation of projected capital expenditure projects for government. After graduating from Yale University I accepted a position with one of the "big six" accounting firms in New York City. I spend a great deal of time in the field and can assure you that a project such as the one proposed is without doubt is an impossibility to fund through taxpayer contribution in a town such as the size of Chatham, or anywhere for that matter With five to six thousand property's sharing the potential cost in the billions, it is totally impossible through taxation without bankrupting every property owner. When towns such as Chatham propose to "sell" to taxpayers such a project, the figure they throw out is the START PRICE TAG as I often liked to say. What is meant by that is the price such as Chatham is purporting of $300 million is if the project started today and finished tomorrow. What officials don't want you to know is the projections of costs over years of long term capital expenditure projects. As an example, I followed a project a year ago which was a municipal water system funded in 2007 and the costs alone of piping and concrete had increased 44% in the course of one year as the result of the reconstruction of Iraq and materials were being shipped there and became a premium price here in America. The increases over a project with a duration of 20-25 years will increase several hundred percent, and that may be a conservative estimate in today's economy. The costs associated with material increase's, job order changes, unforeseen job problems, contractual labor costs, weather interruption costs, equipment costs, security and police details, interruption of business and industry, and the enormous costs associated with repaving streets and private property are only a few of the many considerations that go into the overall total project cost estimates. Another area monetarily is the interest on loans and notes which can run in the millions on a project such as this.
I would suggest you study the costs associated with the "Central Artery Project" also known as the "Big Dig." This has increased 1,000 % from 2.3 billion to at last count is projected at 23 billion.

There have been many of these same projects that have ended unfinished as the result of no more funds were available or taxation ran amuck and municipalities folded up the projects. The sad result was huge wasteful taxpayer spending that was literally flushed down the toilet.

It is my opinion that NO MUNICIPALITY today can undertake such a project at the cost of such HUGE TAXATION to support. Frankly, it is an impossibility.

Many of these projects are presented by overzealous, power hungry and in many cases for monetary gain by corrupt officials. Many are unwarranted with absolutely border line justification or no justification at all. Many are unscientifically proven to be needed and many are just pie in the sky outrageous spending of taxpayer money.

I only hope that this information is helpful in advising the taxpayers of Chatham of what exactly they are getting themselves into, and give them insight into the huge taxation required to fund. It also appears that this project has not been justified and alternatives are in the wings.

After the Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs (speaking through Ms. McDevitt) brushed aside CCT’s complaints about the faulty bureaucratic review process, he wrote CCT again:

To the good people of Chatham and its Concerned Taxpayer Group :

Don't abandon your fight to eliminate this wasteful spending and taxation.

The key now is to get the vote out and put your candidates in office, replace the town manager, file a class action suit against the woman whose final approval continued this project and repeal the town's decision at town meeting to stop this total waste of taxpayer money.

Mark your calendar and present tax bills to follow the money and severe increase in your tax bills over the duration of this outrageous unnecessary spending and taxation.

If not successful in putting a stop to this project, it will cost 10 times the cost that was projected by these irresponsible people in power. Hold them personally and financially responsible in the future.

Don't kid yourself, to complete this over the next 20 years the cost your organization projected will also grow from half a billion to between four and five billion. This equates to somewhere close to half a million per property.

Taxes will escalate to an unsustainable amount each year as properties will decline significantly in value and there will be no purchasers as owners will not be capable of selling due to such a huge tax burden. People will then walk away to foreclosure and town coffers will drain to bankruptcy.

Please post and keep this to refer to over the years as chaos will prevail as more and more taxpayers will realize too late to what happened to Chatham in early 2010, when irresponsible people in power started the demise of the beautiful town of Chatham.

Thanks for your concern.

Bob Jxxxx

We should heed his messages.

THE COSTLY CENTRALIZED SEWER PLAN OF THE CHATHAM TOWN MANAGER IS UNNECESSARY

2010-03-15T12:01:59Z

Following what seemed to be a deliberately confusing presentation at the citizens forum on February 23, 2010 by the Town Manager, CCT analyzed his presentation and confirmed our initial impression that he had failed entirely to tell taxpayers how much his centralized sewer plan would cost taxpayers.

The Town Manager has never given taxpayers realistic projections of what this needlessly expensive centralized sewer project will cost them. This presentation was all about how town accounting can be used to make more spending look like less.

What's the reason for this project? The motivation is to rid Chatham's coastal waters of the excess nitrogen that is blamed for unhealthy waters. While there are much less expensive ways to do this, the Town Manager and the Director of Health & Environment chose a centralized sewer system recommended by its consultant Stearns & Wheler, which is an expert in, guess what? Big City centralized sewer systems.

Taking into account the few new pieces of information the Town Manager supplied, CCT has developed and presents below a simple chart that provides the needed information to taxpayers on what this centralized sewer system will cost them.

The numbers really aren't complicated, though the Town Manager tried to make them appear so. There is construction estimated in 2007 numbers (as if all the work was done in one day) at $210 million and $30 million to pay for the operations during construction of this massively intrusive sewer project over a 20-year period.

Money is borrowed from the state for 20 or 30 years. The town has chosen 30 years for which the interest rate is about 2.83%, not 2% as shown in the Town Manager's charts. Connection costs for those forced to connect average $6,500, using town officials' estimate. About two-thirds of the town's properties will be forced to connect, some 4,386 properties. After the construction period annual maintenance charges of $400 will be levied on those connected. All numbers are adjusted for inflation at 3% a year. Voila! The numbers:

Click on picture to enlarge.

Why 20-year costs? Well, we all think or hope we'll live for this period. Also, the Director of Health & Environment told the Cape Cod Times in December that over a 20-year period a taxpayer getting sewered would only pay $175 a year on average or $3,500 for the 20 years.
Since the connection charge average cost is $6,500, his number is ridiculous as well as false. Our chart also identifies the total costs to taxpayers with various assessments over the 50 years of financing.

A copy of the spreadsheet from which this table was derived can be viewed by clicking on the link below:

CCT Property Taxpayer Cost Analysis FXM 03-14-2010.pdf

Cleaning up Chatham's coastal waters can be done for far less money than with the big city sewer the Town Manager and the Director of Health & Environment have been advocating.

These other ways are endorsed by national and state environmental organizations as better for the environment. They cause far less disruption to community life. They don't disturb and drain the water table as the centralized sewer does. They deliver results in far less time. They will not overload Cockle Cove Creek, turning it into an open ditch flooded with treated wastewater. With neighborhood cluster systems, Chatham won't become the Sewer Hub for the Lower Cape, as the Director of Health & Environment rhapsodically envisioned at a recent selectmen's meeting.

What's best for the environment and best for the taxpayer is not being done.

The Town Manager's plan wastes hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money with the hugely expensive centralized sewer plan that many taxpayers are rejecting in Falmouth, Mashpee and Orleans. Will the selectmen save the taxpayers or commit them to decades of unnecessary property taxpayer costs?

The Town Manager plan will cost close to half a billion dollars. Shouldn't everyone want to see if cleaning up the coastal bays of Chatham can be done for half the cost? Apparently everyone does except for the Town Manager, the Director of Health & Environment and the Selectmen and their usual allies.

The selectmen have closed down all discussion of their hugely expensive sewer project at selectmen's meetings. This Gulag-like denial of free speech is unprecedented in Chatham's history, as far as we know. Those who support what the selectmen want to hear are given unlimited talk time. Mention cheaper alternatives to clean up Chatham waters and the selectmen chairman gavels the speaker into silence.

The selectmen have denied taxpayers access to the town's television channel so they can inform citizens of the environmentally better and less expensive choices that taxpayers have. The selectmen need to abandon their devotion to yesterday's technology and open their eyes to what modern methods can do for the environment and the taxpayer's pocketbook. What blinds them?

A fully informed town meeting should vote on a final plan before it is implemented. However, it appears that the selectmen intend to deny taxpayers that vote as they are now denying them the opportunity to speak out at selectmen's meetings for less expensive alternatives that are environmentally superior.

The responsibility for this wasteful spending, therefore, will rest solely on their shoulders after the Town Manager moves on to his next assignment. Ten years is more than enough for someone in that position.

Town officials are fighting to spend taxpayer money on a project they like but refuse to tell citizens why they haven't tried harder to look at far cheaper alternatives and why they are rushing to start construction when there is no urgency. Some taxpayers have concluded that the Town Manager wants to present taxpayers with a fait accompli, that is, to move the project so far along there will be no turning back or shifting to less costly alternatives.

The big unanswered question is why they are so uninterested in looking into ways of saving taxpayer money. The selectmen have a fiduciary duty to spend taxpayer money wisely and they are not discharging that duty. But can they buck the Town Manager?

MORE FACTS ABOUT THE CHATHAM SEWER YOU WEREN'T TOLD THAT ELAINE GIBBS HAS DUG OUT

2010-01-31T20:09:46Z

Citizen taxpayer Elaine Gibbs has followed up her electrifying memo to the selectmen with a equally startling memo to the Finance Committee. The more she digs, the more incredible information she is finding, stuff nobody knew except those on the inside. As she says, town officials should have been getting this kind of information out. Busy taxpayers with other things to do shouldn't have to make a career of finding out what their public officials are up to but don't want to say.

It's absolutely remarkable how little has been said in public about the centralized sewer by town officials since early last year. Silence has largely reigned. Is that because town officials just wanted sleeping dogs to keep sleeping? Just asking. When CCT proposed that vastly less costly alternatives be evaluated, town officials did leap to the ramparts, not to agree, but to kill the idea.

Here's Elaine Gibbs' Memo to the Finance Committee.

Gibbs Finance Jan 28 2010-Final.pdf

Here's her earlier Memo to the Board of Selectmen in case you missed it.

WastewaterEG.pdf

There will finally be a hearing on the sewer plan on Tuesday, February 23rd. We have to make sure the public has an extensive opportunity to comment and ask questions and it isn't just another effort to squelch debate.

This sewer plan, which will cost a half billion dollars, more or less, is staggering in its implications for Chatham's way of life for the next 20 years.

Every citizen who can find the time should read through the plan. Dr. Duncanson has stated that Stearns & Wheler is obliged to provide every citizen of Chatham who requests it a free copy. Call Stearns & Wheler to have your copy sent to you. The Hyannis office is 508-790-1707.

What's fascinating about this document is that it is supposedly Chatham's official Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan, but it's got Stearns & Wheler's copyright notice on the cover and every page has Stearns & Wheler's name at the bottom.

Did town officials just rubberstamp what Stearns & Wheler drafted? Stearns & Wheler does big city sewers. That's their businesss, good luck to them.

But Chatham should always be looking for the most cost-effective solution to a problem, but why do we wonder if that was done in this case?

Every other town that's actively working on the problem of excess nitrogen in coastal pwaters -- Falmouth, Mashpee and Orleans -- is looking for a cost effective way to deal with the problem, rejecting the centralized sewer solution as way too expensive for homeowners. Who thinks Chatham is so rich it needn't do what they are doing? It isn't the Chatham taxpayers who pay the bills.

COME TO CCT'S TAXPAYER EMERGENCY PLANNING MEETING, FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 2010, 8:30 A.M., CHATHAM COMMUNITY CENTER

2010-01-21T04:47:27Z

COME TO OUR EMERGENCY TAXPAYER PLANNING MEETING FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 2010 AT THE COMMUNITY CENTER STARTING AT 8:30 A.M. TO LEARN FACTS ABOUT THE SEWER YOU HAVEN’T BEEN TOLD AND WHAT THE ACTION PLAN WILL BE TO STOP THIS DENIAL OF YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE ON THIS MONUMENTAL PROJECT.

ELAINE GIBBS WILL TELL YOU WHAT YOU HAVEN'T BEEN TOLD.

WastewaterEG.pdf

THIS IS YOUR MONEY. YOU CAN DO THE JOB FOR FAR LESS.

DO THE JOB FOR FAR LESS.pdf

TAXPAYERS OF CHATHAM!!
Your town officials are buying for you the most expensive big city centralized sewer system (like Boston’s) that taxpayers of other Cape towns don’t want because it costs too much.

There is a catch: You are the ones who have to pay for their “Grand Plan” with your property taxes. The Grand Plan will cost half a billion dollars ($500,000,000) at least, but since it will be payable over 50 years your kids and grandkids will have to kick in, too. This is the most expensive project in the history of the town.

You deserve to know the facts and to have the chance to vote on the plan. But you may not know the facts till it’s too late and you may never get the chance to vote on it.

Chatham Concerned Taxpayers (CCT) has repeatedly urged town officials to evaluate alternatives that can clean the nitrogen from our coastal waters for 25% to 50% less cost, but their attitude was, “No, thanks. We aren’t interested in checking out savings for taxpayers. We deserve the best, we can afford it. It’s the Chatham way. Go away.” No to savings of $100-$250 million?

Town officials apparently have decided not to put their Grand Plan to a town meeting vote or to let taxpayers know about the availability of less expensive alternatives or even how much they will have to pay for their Grand Plan. Therefore, as a start, CCT has done the calculations presented in the table below (numbers rounded to zero) so you can determine what your costs will be if town officials go forward with their Grand Plan. (Supporting data is elswhere on this website.)

Just find your assessment value in the left column and read across. Why 20 years? Optimists that we are, we all think we’ll live that long. We once again ask town officials to publish their detailed taxpayer cost estimates since the only information about the cost of the Grand Plan the public has seen is Dr. Robert Duncanson’s assertion printed in the Cape Cod Times of December 7, 2009 that the average property owner would only pay $3,500 over 20 years for the sewer at an average yearly cost of $175. That isn’t possible. The town’s estimate of the average charge for a property owner to connect to the sewer system is $6,500, so Dr. Duncanson’s $3,500 doesn’t even pay for that, let alone cover even a nickel of the property tax bill for the half billion dollar sewer. CCT believes the estimates set forth below are, if anything, understated.

Click on the table to enlarge.

WE MUST ACT NOW BECAUSE TOWN OFFICIALS ARE PLANNING TO EXECUTE CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTS AND START DIGGING ANY DAY NOW BEFORE YOU KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING. ALL OF THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON UNDER THE RADAR.

If you want town officials to seriously evaluate far less expensive ways to clean Chatham’s waters, WE MUST ACT NOW. Mashpee is currently evaluating a low cost alternative that it hopes will save it $300 million over the $550 million cost estimate for a Chatham-type centralized sewer. Falmouth is checking out less expensive alternatives, so is Orleans and Dennis plans to, also.

Chatham is the only Cape town not bothering to look at saving huge taxpayer dollars with alternative strategies but is rushing ahead with a hugely expensive conventional centralized sewer that is likely to be obsolete before it is finished, taking into account the explosion of “green” technology that is taking place.

There is no need for rushing ahead. There are no timetables, there are no deadlines. We should solve the excess nitrogen problem the most cost effective way possible.

Environmental organizations and EPA support and prefer alternatives such as decentralized low cost sewer systems because they are environmentally friendly as well as less expensive.

We should demand that town officials stop now and not proceed with implementation of their Grand Plan. They should carefully evaluate less costly options for integration into the final plan and you have learned what all your costs for your property will be for the different options. You should demand a town meeting vote on the plan, alternatives and taxpayer costs.

THERE IS NO TIME TO LOSE. WE MUST ACT NOW.
COME TO OUR EMERGENCY TAXPAYER PLANNING MEETING FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 2010 AT THE COMMUNITY CENTER STARTING AT 8:30 A.M. TO LEARN FACTS ABOUT THE SEWER YOU HAVEN’T BEEN TOLD AND WHAT THE ACTION PLAN WILL BE TO STOP THIS DENIAL OF YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE ON THIS MONUMENTAL PROJECT.

BRING YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS. GET OUR SEWER NEWS IN THIS WEEK’S CHRONICLE.

ELAINE GIBBS: LET ME TELL YOU THE SEWER HORROR FACTS

2010-01-21T03:58:01Z

Elaine Gibbs, homeowner and registered voter became incensed at the rude behavior of Chatham town officials towards CCT challenging them to tell taxpayers the truth about their HALF BILLION DOLLAR sewer plans. She devoted a week around the clock to finding out what is really about to happen if town officials succeed in starting construction of their huge, expensive sewer plan in the next few days. They will be in effect committing taxpayers to HALF A BILLION DOLLARS AND MORE in property taxes for which taxpayers have not voted.

Download a copy of Elaine's extraordinary memo to the selectmen demanding answers.

It is MUST READING. TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO GET THEIR COPY HERE. READ IT ONLIINE BY CLICKING THE LINK BELOW TO OPEN OR RIGHT CLICK ON "SAVE TARGET AS" AND DOWNLOAD YOUR OWN COPY TO THE FOLDER YOU SELECT.

Elaine will be telling the story at our Friday emergency taxpayer planning meeting at the Community Centee at 8:30 a.m..

WastewaterEG.pdf

We can't let them keep this story under the radar any longer. We'll be the losers if we do.

Why does Chatham always seem to find the most expensive way to do things? In this case, it's HALF A BILLION DOLLARS OR MORE, not just an overbuilt $10 million community center or a $17 million town hall annex for a handful of police and planning and permitting people. This is HUGE money. The job can be done for less, but town officials aren't interested. But taxpayers are very interested.

We'll discuss how we can slow things down and get cheaper solutions looked at.

It'll probably take a special town meeting to do it.

WHAT WILL THE TOWN OFFICIALS' CENTRALIZED SEWER COST PROPERTY TAXPAYERS? TOWN OFFICIALS WON'T SAY, SO CCT ESTIMATES

2010-01-20T16:28:21Z

Chatham Concerned Taxpayers since last spring has been asking town officials to provide taxpayers with some real estimates of their costs for so-called Phase 1 of the Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan (CWMP). Town officials have decided upon a big city centralized sewer system, which will extend to about two-thirds of Chatham's properties. The quoted cost estimate (now three years old) has been $240 million, which is a staggering sum. But the real amount is going to be a lot more because the construction period will be 20 years, costs will rise and interest will have to be paid on the money borrowed.

Taxpayer Cost of the Centralized Sewer System Proposed by Town Officials. Despite CCTs requests, the only estimate given out by any town official for Phase 1 was by Dr. Robert Duncanson. As reported in the Cape Cod Times of December 7, 2009, in an interview with a reporter Duncanson claimed that the average homeowner would only pay $3,500 over 20 years, or an average of $175 per year. Since the average cost for an individual property owner's connection to the sewer is estimated by town officials as $6,500, Dr. Duncanson's $3,500 does not even cover that cost let alone pay any part of the property tax cost of the centralized sewer system itself..

Therefore, CCT decided to do its best to inform taxpayers what kind of costs they might face. Working with na Excel spreadsheet program, using publicly available information and normal engineering estimating practices, the table which appears below was developed to show approximate costs for properties of different valuation, depending on whether they would be sewered in Phase 1 or not.

As we see it, the total cost of the town officials' plan could be in the range of $490 million up to $750 million. The table below uses $500 billion to calculate taxpayer costs, which almost certainly understates what the taxpayer costs will ultimately be.

The main capital costs of the system will be on the property tax and payable by all properties, sewered or not. Those sewered will individually pay a connection charge and monthly maintenance fees. These costs are factored in along with interest (best available from the state) and 3% inflation. The $10 million net benefit from the USDA loan/grant program ($10 million) is credited to the overall cost. Numbers are rounded to zero for easier reading. The spreadsheet which generated the chart can be accessed by clicking on the link at the end of this item.

Click on the table below to get a bigger picture.

To view the back-up spreadsheet, click link below:

100118 ChathPropTaxpCost Analysis chart backup online.xls

Why talk about a sewer at all? There is only one reason for discussing such a system at all: It is believed that by removing "excess nitrogen" from Chatham's embayments the waters will be healthier. Assuming that's so, CCT raised a simple, straightforward question, "Isn't there a way to do that for a lot less money than what town officials are proposing?"

Better, cheaper alternatives. It didn't take long for CCT to discover indeed there was. Low cost neighborhood or cluster sewer systems which can perform the required nitrogen removal task at far less cost. They can be installed jn a much shorter time frame, will cause far less disruption to the community's way of life and are much friendlier to the environment. They will show positive results sooner, no waiting for more than 20 years to see if the centralized sewer system actually does the job.

CCT presented an informational forum on these alternatives in September and petitioned the selectmen (September 22, 2009) to undertake an evaluation process of these alternatives that have the potential of saving taxpayers 25% to 50% of the cost of the centralized sewer system town officials were proposing to build. That could be $100 million to $250 million. The selectmen refused. CCT argued that they had a fiduciary obligation to taxpayers to look into possible savings of this magnitude. Still they refused. The selectmen said alternatives had been considered four or so years back and none of them worked. CCT's investigation showed that the town had never considered an alternative system that could do the job of removing nitrogen as well as any modern large sewer treatment plant at far less cost. Still, the selectmen refused.

There must be a town meeting to vote on the entire CWMP. The third request CCT made to town officials was to put the CWMP to a town meeting for a vote of approval or disapproval before launching any implementation of their hugely expensive project. Shockingly, it appears as if they have no intention of doing so. CCT has learned that the treatment plant upgrade they are planning to do immediately will enlarge it to its 20-year capacity, making it impossible to incorporate any far less expensive alternatives into the nitrogen removal solution. Taxpayers would in effect be forced to vote for all the additional monies ($180 to $200 million) to spread sewer piping throughout the town to provide the large quantities of wastewater the enlarged plant needs to operate. No taxpayer who voted for the treatment plant enlargement on May 11, 2009 in Article 14 of the Warrant had any idea he was in effect being committed to paying for a half billion to a billion dollar project, because he wasn't told that would be the effect of his vote.