What Are We Doing?

Is the Town really ‘fully capable’ of running a water utility? (October 8, 2015)

In the article about Assemblyman Jay Obernolte’s (R-Hesperia) address to Victor Valley Chamber of Commerce members, you quote Mayor Pro Tem Barb Stanton as saying the town is fully capable of maintaining the system …. (Assemblyman discusses benefits, pitfalls of water system acquisition, Daily Press, October 8, 2015).

The obvious question is, based on what evidence?

The Town has only had two opportunities to run a water utility, and it has failed utterly in each instance. Furthermore, the Town’s on-staff expert is retiring at the end of 2015, so even that modest claim to competency will be long gone by the time the Town manages its hostile takeover.

As if that’s not enough, the Town is currently hurtling forward with reckless abandon to install a special pipeline from the not-yet-completed waste water treatment facility at Brewster Park to the Apple Valley Golf Course, despite being told repeatedly that the agreement it signed with Ranchos in 1998 in which the Town agreed that Ranchos would be the town’s exclusive water retailer. No matter how good the Town’s waste water system is, it will be no match for the Town’ waste money system, which is running at full tilt.

— Greg Raven is Co-Chair of Apple Valley Citizens for Government Accountability, and is concerned about quality of life issues.