Simple facts of Measure K

Editor: Measure K seeks to roll back water and sewer rates to January 2006 levels. If we can make any sense of what’s going on in the financial world today, it’s that there is no going back — especially no going back to irresponsibility. The treatment plant is a bold, forward-looking initiative that allows Petaluma to keep pace with inevitable change and assures our quality of life and that of our children’s.

While a rate rollback might sound attractive, its costs in dollars and reputation are real, astronomical and potentially catastrophic. Like so many seemingly attractive deals, what you choose now in false short-term benefits, results later in real financial loss.

The simple facts are these:

1. Rate rollback will mean that Petaluma cannot pay the debt (a low-interest 2.4 percent loan from the state) it incurred to build the new sewage treatment plant. The terms of the loan require the city to impose sewer charges sufficient to fund the operation of the city’s sewer system. If rates are rolled back, the city cannot meet that loan requirement.

2. Rate rollback will mean the city will have to divert funds from the city’s budget to pay the debt. The city is in a painful financial contraction (along with every other city and state in the United States) and there are no extra funds available. Additional staff layoffs and decreases in city services will occur if Measure K is passed.

3. Rate rollback will mean the city likely would not be able to pay the debt. Bankruptcy could be a possibility. The city’s inability to repay its debt would severely damage its credit rating.

The arguments against Measure K are numerous and sound. They are arguments for affirming the future, affirming quality of life, affirming the positive. Most remarkably in these times of frequent community divisiveness and contention, consider the citizens and organizations united in opposition to Measure K. They represent every social, economic and political point of view. Please join us in voting no on Measure K.

Stephen Andrew Mori and Elizabeth Emery Mori,

Petaluma