Response to 20/20 e-mail posting on Nextdoor.com (March 10, 2017)
Thanks for posting this. It shows how low the Town is willing to go to get its way, regardless of the damage it causes our community.
First, Tim Gallagher is paid by the Town of Apple Valley to promote this takeover.
Second, this is an emergency session because the Town wants to ram this through with as little opposition as possible.
Third, the Town’s financial analysis is years old, was both incorrect and incomplete when first released, and is now out of date.
Fourth, because the Town doesn’t know what it is buying, doesn’t know what it will cost, doesn’t know where the money is coming from, doesn’t know what the money will cost, and doesn’t know how to run a water utility, there is no way it can promise to stabilize or lower rates — except through lies and demagoguery.
Fifth, while Liberty did spend around $500,000 to support Measure V, they cannot by law recover that money from us. We are the only beneficiaries of that expenditure. On the other hand, the $1.6 million and counting spent by the Town to promote falsehoods about this hostile takeover come right out of taxpayers’ pockets.
Sixth, the cost of water in Apple Valley is comparable as that in surrounding areas, once you take into account all the hidden costs of water delivery in Adelanto, Victorville, and Hesperia. Because Liberty Utilities is locally controlled and financially transparent, we are able to see what our water actually costs. This would come to an abrupt end in the event of the Town’s takeover.
Don’t let the same know-nothings who have lost millions on the golf course (and elsewhere) get ahold of our water system! If you want to see how poorly the Town runs things, check out the videos by Kerry Henard.
For more information about this topic, visit my websites here and here.
By all means, come to the meeting tonight. Don’t let them get away with this!
— Greg Raven is Co-Chair of Apple Valley Citizens for Government Accountability, and is concerned about quality of life issues.