Thoughts on Sewer Board and cost

I want to better articulate what I was trying to express at the Community Meeting last week. I am a candidate for a position on the sewer board. I had never considered running or becoming a part of the process but I was asked to run. So reluctantly, I filed.

I don’t know how comfortable I’d be on the board but this is a serious issue for me personally, as well as for other residents in my area, and that is why I wish to be involved with the process. Follows are points from part of a letter I wrote last September both to the Pathfinder and to the board:

1. I am not opposed to a sewer system for the business areas

2. I am opposed to making it mandatory for residences in Phase 1

3. There must be an equitable way to address residences in Phase 1

4. I am a single, elderly – 73 year old woman living in a 500 square foot house.

5. I cannot afford more than $50 total (usage and engineering/development debt repayment) per month and would be forced to move, to sell my first owned home, if it were more. I have no idea where I’d go for affordable housing, no family to help, just me (and my canine kid).

I know I should have been going to earlier meetings. There is much that I do not know about the process getting us to this stage and especially the technical and engineering aspects.

I do believe it is needed for area businesses and potential new ones. Like it or not, Seeley Lake is growing.

But for many if not most residents in Phase 1, the proposed cost and the monthly payments would be economically devastating. If this is indeed mandatory for residences, I firmly believe implementation must be equitable for residential users who have far fewer assets and low or fixed income.

I understand assistance for monthly payments may be available but I am opposed to be forced to rely on outside assistance to cover the monthly payments. Plus, is that assistance guaranteed for the lifetime of the department repayment of the sewer system? Regardless, as it stands with the projected monthly cost, I will be forced to sell my home.

If it is indeed mandatory for residences, and the monthly fee, the total cost to residents, can’t be done more equitably, then I am opposed.