Editorial

City taxpayers are the big losers in the rejection of Southside Water and Sewer District's wastewater proposal by the Sandpoint City Council's Public Works Committee.

The committee cast aside an opportunity to generate thousands of dollars of income for the city by refusing to pass the proposal onto the full council and thus rejecting Southside's generous offer to pay the city for treating excess wastewater.

Southside's offer could have added to the city's coffers hundreds of thousands of dollars in new user fees alone over the life of an agreement with the city.

Since the city's treatment plant has idle capacity during late night and early morning hours on every normal day, the plant could easily treat Southside's excess wastewater and the city would incur no additional capital costs and only minimal operating costs. In addition, the processing of Southside's wastewater during this time would not limit the city's ability to add new customers, nor impact the useful life of the treatment plant, and would contribute to more efficient and effective use of the facility.

These facts were presented in both detailed written and verbal reports. Helen Newton's and Michael Boge's votes against the proposal, in my opinion, demonstrated a lack of understanding, or some political motivation, but certainly were not in the best interests of Sandpoint. Steve Lockwood stated that he opposed the Southside proposal for some reason related to the need for a single regional government — an issue having little to do with the proposal at hand.

The Bee's article (Sept. 8) erroneously quoted Lockwood as stating, "I want to see Southside work together with us toward a regionalized system." It was Boge who made the statement. Lockwood is the only council member who earlier at a full City Council meeting opposed funding for a feasibility study on a regional wastewater treatment facility. The three council members have been repeatedly advised that Southside's participation in a regional wastewater facility would be most unlikely if their proposal was rejected.

The proposal submitted by Southside has the full support of the mayor, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, the city's director of public works and their engineering consultant, J-U-B

Southside presented a win-win proposal and the rejection by council members Newton, Boge and Lockwood made Sandpoint taxpayers the big losers.

BRUCE E. VOGELSINGER

Sandpoint