How Much Are YOU Overpaying For Water?

I read on the Patch that I want to triple the Water Bills of Pt. Pleasant’s residents. First of all, why the hell would I want to do that? How exactly would that benefit me or anyone? Secondly, no one can arbitrarily raise or lower your Water Bill. There is a relatively simple formula and there are checks and balances. This does not however mean that everyone is charged on equal terms. Water charges, of all Boro issues, are possibly the most misunderstood by our residents. It is also one of the most politically charged. The fact is local politicians past and present like it this way, they like having it as a political grenade to toss at each other. Because it is so misunderstood, the fabrications and misrepresentations are difficult to refute. When it comes down to it the Boro Water is just a pawn of pathetic political self-preservationism where it’s more advantageous to tell the people what they want to hear than to tell the truth. The truth is not one single person in town is paying an accurate Water Bill and the elected are too afraid of reactionaries and reelection to be honest.

The finer points of the Water Bill are a little involved but the basic principle is easy: The Boro collects as much as it costs to operate the utility. We can only raise through the quarterly bills how much it costs to operate the infrastructure and the cost of however many gallons are used. Each household’s bill has two parts, the delivery, or Ready To Serve Charge, and the Rate multiplied by gallons used. So to illustrate lets say the Boro has two households or “accounts”, one with 2 people in the home and one with 6 to illustrate both ends of the spectrum, keeping in mind that 3 of every 5 homes in town has school age children and therefore leans toward the heavier usage end of the scale. According to most estimates I found, one person uses approx. 150 gallons of water per day, here’s a rudimentary breakdown of how the bills are calculated:

So what we can derive is that both accounts are charged the same for delivery, which I would say makes sense, no matter who you are, where you live, or what size house you have, the cost of access to water is the same to any and all accounts. The second thing to note is that the rate is the same for both households. This also makes sense to me, we are all charged the same price just as we would at the market. If you lower your bill, you have control over how much you use. What we also see is that the total cost for the entire utility is $1,219.00 and that is how much the Boro is to raise through billing.

So let’s say the chart above was for 2012, lets also say that the Boro conducts an audit and finds that $1,219.00 is correct and the “books are balanced”; however, the audit also finds that the $80 raised through the Ready To Serve Charge does not cover the full fixed operational costs, that the full amount of operating the utility was in fact $250. Why should this matter? As I said in the beginning, all households should pay the same amount for access to this service just as we should pay the same rate. When we go to the supermarket different products may have different prices but the same product has the same price for everyone.

So let’s re-run the numbers in this scenario to show a Ready To Serve Charge that fully funds the utility’s operational expenses, adjust the Rate to balance, and see what happens to each accounts’ bill.

The first thing to note is that the total is $1218, not $1219 because I rounded decimals. The important thing is that the Rate comes down. Yes, that’s right, if you raise the Ready To Serve Charge, the Rate comes down. What’s most important is how each account’s bill changes. The operational deficit in the first chart was compensated for in the Rate, a variable factor based on volume, therefore the more water you used the more of the deficit you were over paying for. In essence, if the Ready To Serve Charge does not cover the full operating expenses, the households that use the most water, 3 out of every 5, subsidize the houses that use the least. Unless the Ready To Serve Charge is accurate, the more you use, the more you over pay. In the second chart, when all accounts pay equally the full operating expenses, your Bill and how high or low it is, is 100% a matter of how much you use.

It just seems to me that a public service should come at the same price to everyone, then it is my choice as an individual and as a consumer what I choose to do with that service, and that I in this example, as a conservative person can exercise control over my use and ultimately how much I pay.

Pre Lives, Livestrong and the Person of Cultinality

Over the weekend I went to the Nike Store at the Jersey Shore Outlets to check out the sales. Work has been especially hectic the last few months so I haven't been running much and nothing jump starts me like new gear. Falling out of my running routine can bring me down fast. I have a history of weight issues and I'm old enough now that my metabolism is a ghost of its former self, so being sedentary at work and not running is a bad recipe. Most importantly though, my time running is my time for life, the universe and everything. It's my time for meditation and reflection. When I'm particularly stressed or weighed down, exhausting my body is the best way to free my mind; bringing myself to my physical limits lets my brain loose from the rat's maze of routine, deadlines and demands, and sets free the creativity and fantasy that I sadly just don't have the time to explore much anymore. So for me going to the Nike Store is like flipping through a travel guide.

I found a good pair of shorts at a great price and as I was weaving through the aisles when something caught my eye, even in the blurred periphery I knew, it was Pre! Steve Prefontaine! When Pre died in 1974, he held every American record between 800m and 10000m. Like James Dean, Pre is a true American icon that embodies all the cool, all the bravado and all the Romance of a figure so uniquely American and so prematurely tragic, who flares brilliantly and quickly leaving a looming almost super human shadow burned into the landscape like the Shadows of Hiroshima for any who dare to follow. Pre's legacy is not just what he accomplished in a short time; he embodies infinite questions, possibilities, potential, loss and all that could have been-never to be answered.

I'm always hopeful to come across a piece of Pre-mabelia, which doesn't happen much since Nike's "Pre Lives" branding campaign from a few years ago, and this shirt was a WINNER. Great photo of Pre breaking the tape in black and white on grey, but what was the yellow, a stain or mark? I moved past someone and a rack of jog pants and my jaw dropped, I couldn't believe it! Superimposed across Pre's singlet "Livestrong" and a yellow plastic bracelet on his wrist, the "stain" that caught my attention, and all things considered, "stain" is accurate.

Lance Armstrong’s name became familiar to me over the years as it did most Americans and countless others around the globe as the champion who beat cancer and whose super human determination was producing super human feats of endurance. Only someone with a heart of cold dead stone would not WANT to be awed by his story, and we as a culture made him a celebrity, read about his ups and downs, donated, bought his products, even the stupid plastic bracelets, because we believed, because we WANTED to believe in the myth he had fabricated. This is nothing new. Every Culture is laced with the power of mythology from the blunt utility of The Art of War, the shrewd manipulations of Machiavelli's Prince, even the lighthearted but biting criticisms of The Importance of Being Earnest and the fantasies of DC and Marvel comics. Our American mythology seemed to be populated by the gods of Sport: Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Mohammed Ali, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Michael Jordan, on and on. Like the coliseum in Rome, spectacle and the performers of spectacle have come to dominate our culture. Some we tear down to make ourselves feel superior, most we elevate to demigods and obsess on their glory. What Lance did was so shrewd, so calculated and so deceitful as too make all that came before him seem benign. Lance created a far reaching and powerful system of deception meant to place him at the center, elevate him, transmogrify him like Jesus on Easter into something superhuman, and he did it all in the name, under the guise, of a selfless victim turned champion who just wanted to reach and help as many lives as possible. Even typing that makes me as bitter as I can stand. It is beyond disgusting. Bankrupt ego run riot. This is so far beyond the simplicity of an athlete trying to keep his edge or attain some meager trophy like the Major League dopers and steroid users. This is a man who single handedly manipulated the personal and professional lives of hundreds first hand, thousands by association, and all predicated on the lie that the rewards you reap are relative the your work and dedication to that goal, but everything he achieved was a lie that in perpetrating, robbed dozens of others from honestly achieving the "pinnacle" achievements of work, dedication and sacrifice he professed: the athletes, spouses, families, trainers, competitors, doctors, sponsors, the list goes on.

I WANT to believe in heroes, but I don't want to believe in lies. Of course all heroes have clay feet, but it’s about who they present themselves to be. It is the person's character that matters and their character that will endure. Pre was a loudmouth and a braggart to the point of being at times obnoxious, but he never claimed to be inherently superior, he always said that whatever happened in a race was simply a matter of how hard he prepared, how deep he dug and what he left on the track. He famously said, "Someone may beat me but they're going to have to bleed to do it." This is what is inspiring to people like me about Pre. He said he wasn't built like a great runner, he was too short, his torso too long. Hey! I'm too short! My legs are too short! I smoked for 16 years! I'm slow! But I know, when it comes down to it, and I commit myself, when all that matters is what's inside, I will bleed my guts out before I just give up or walk away from something.

Pre carried that in all his endeavors, the son of good German Protestant stock. He lobbied against the burning of Fall crops because of pollution, particularly air quality during track season. He lobbied to Congress about the deplorable treatment of amateur athletes, a fight his friends carried on in his name and eventually won, ironically freeing the way for Nike to create the Pro sponsor cult of personality that has brought it so much success. He traveled from high school meet to high school meet, an Olympic hero!, in his burned out MG with a trunk full of Nikes, meeting fans and cultivating the sport he loved. It wasn't known till sometime after his death that he was sponsoring prison running clubs for years, perhaps sharing the freedom of body, mind and soul he had found with those who had no other way to find their own. Pre had done all this and more without making a spectacle of himself, at least off the track. Pre, for all his bravado, is a testament of reverence for the spectacle of life that is all around us and that I think he was thankful to be a part of. I'm comfortable making this assumption because of how humbly and modestly he chose to pay it back, whether handing out free shoes to young runners or raising money to preserve his favorite running spot, a trail that was eventually purchased in his name and I thoroughly enjoyed jogging. Pre celebrated life and reflected it back to all those he touched because he innately knew what people like Lance Armstrong will never understand: the ability to influence is far greater and more important than the ability to take credit. 

The Tools We Use, The Service We Expect & The Return We Deserve On Our Investment

What's the big deal about a website, and why should it matter to you what email Boro workers use? Simply put, these are the two most important issues that can be addressed today to make our municipal operations more cost effective, more efficient, and increase the return on investment of our Boro residents. If we take the analogy of the Boro as a business, the municipal website if properly crafted and executed could be the single most powerful tool in service to the public. After all, the Boro's primary function and responsibility is to provide the service for our community that we can not provide for ourselves as individuals. These services like our own heartbeats or breathing are vital and ever-present but tend to go unnoticed, and like our internal functions that cause illness and damage when they don't function optimally, our internal Boro functions create their own chronic symptoms and dysfunction when they aren't properly attended. A multifaceted municipal website minimizes the wasted time and effort of residents who want information and services to be easy, as they should be. An integrated website allows Boro offices to communicate internally and with the public quickly and efficiently. Just as business enterprises have already proven, online information, services and conveniences once adopted are indispensable.
Equally if not more so, our Boro email, or in a broader/truer sense our Boro operations platform, is the foundation upon which modern operations are built. Anyone in business or other ventures that has tasted the power and potential of a system such as Google Apps understands that it is the difference between the telegraph and fiber optics, between the Bronze Age and 3-D printing. The tools readily available, the tools that can be created, the speed and simplicity with which to communicate, create, and devise instruments seems to me what it must have been like at the dawn of the printing press, radio, television, or the home PC.
For a combined cost that amounts to half of an average salary we can save multiple future salaries for workers doing things "the old fashioned way", and produce savings that will pay dividends by treating the system, not the symptom. If we are agreed as a community of the level of  services we expect from our municipal offices than we should also be agreed to demand that our money, our investment, yield the greatest possible effect and return.