NORTH EAST OHIO REGIONAL SEWER DISTRICT goes for your wallet without any performance goal criteria - "stormwater fee"

More power, more NEORSd pension security, and more office hires come with a bigger budget.  (oh, I forgot to add,  - SUPPOSTEDLY less sedimentation.)

Bigger is definitely better – for the bureaucracy.   For EVERY BUREAUCRACY!  

In the United States there are more than 10,000 governmental bureaucracies.  Towns, Cities, Counties, States, Federal, - and of course – regional.   About every one of the bureaucracies is facing eminent municipal bankruptcy – THEY ALL NEED MORE FEES, MORE TAXES, MORE BUILDING, DENSER ZONING, ETC, ETC, ETC. 

REGIONAL is what we have here in NEO with NEORSD.  

A regional bureaucracy. 

We also call it the SEWER DISTRICT.

If you have been around for a few years, you know that the Sewer District has had lots of corruption.   Embedded corruption.   Even their lawyer (no surprise) was corrupt.

Kind of a cold case now, but Mr. Shatz (almost rhymes with Shitz) was the NEORSD citizen-helping attorney from 1979 until his gig was interrupted by the FBI in 2007 [1] – almost 30 years and the sewer district just flowed harmoniously into Lake Erie.   No one noticed.  Sewers flowed smoothly.

Here is the fine print from the FBI report:

“William B. Schatz was the General Counsel of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD) from 1979 until his retirement in August 2007. During his tenure, the NEORSD had major sewage tunnel contracts including the Mill Creek Tunnel Contract, Phases 2 and 3. Schatz admitted that from in or about 2000, through on or about April 26, 2007, he corruptly solicited and accepted approximately $682,130.00, from a contractor, identified as Contractor No. 1, who was part of a Joint Venture working on the Mill Creek Tunnel Contracts. Schatz received the payments through an intermediary company, identified as Client Company No. 1.”

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But I am not writing here today to recount how the Sewer Folks violated the public with their corruption and ignorance in the past, I am writing today to suggest that those very same sewer folks – with their new and exorbitant so called “stormwater fee” beginning January 1, 2013 [2] – will take more of the citizen’s money – without any connection to performance goals.   (if anyone spots any document showing the present run off volume and velocity and sedimentation load  - please post a link here.)

(likewise, if anyone spots any projected objectives for decrease in storm water run off volume, velocity and sediment load (including dissolved pollutants – lawn chemicals, fertilizers, VOCs  and soil) please post a link here.

Being called to dinner - I will fill this out further soon. Happy NEW YEAR!