Deerfield Beach city officials and managers don’t know how, or don’t care about, cutting wasteful spending. The latest example is the 2007 Water Quality Report they mailed out. In addition to my home in Deerfield Beach, I also have a house in Naples. I just got my 2007 Water Quality Report from the Collier County Water Department. The Collier County report is on two pieces of standard copier paper and it was mailed with my water bill so there was no additional postage. The Deerfield Beach Report is a four-page booklet on slick expensive paper with expensive graphics and it was mailed separately from the water bill, requiring additional postage. Deerfield Beach could have saved a lot of money by mailing a downsized report with just the facts in the envelope with the water bills but they don’t care, they just raised our rates by up to 38 percent.
Collier County also raised rates.My bill in Naples is always the same because I only spend five or six days a month in Naples and I don’t use county water for irrigation. My Collier County combined water and sewer bill increased $4.26 a month, my Deerfield Beach bill increased about $50 a month.
Because of our spineless commissioners and mayor, we have three levels of water and sewer rates that put an unfair burden on single family homeowners and businesses, many of which are going out of business. Every shopping center and office building now has a vacancy sign in front of it. Single family homeowners pay a base rate for water and sewer that is also 200 percent higher than Century Village. Century Village had the lowest rate because they owned and maintained their own water and sewer lines. Then they needed $2,000,000 in repairs, so the city took over the costs of maintaining their system, but because of threats to vote no on the 2003 bond issues, they kept their low rates. I remember in the September, 2003 commission meeting, Commissioner Trinchitella brought in busloads of Century Village residents and said, quoting from the September 18, 2003 issue of the Observer, “We will not endorse any bond issue until the outcome of this.” The commission took over the $2,000,000 in repairs and in November, Century Village voted for the bond issue that Larry Deetjen and the commissioners wanted.
Many working families and small businesses are at the breaking point, we need to demand fair and equal treatment and start throwing our elected representatives out of office if they don’t respond. While we are throwing out the bums in Deerfield Beach, let us not forget about the state legislators who failed at property tax reform and accelerated the collapse of your property values. Let’s throw out the biggest offenders of all, our local congressmen, Wexler, Klien, and Hastings. These three guys have done nothing to solve our problems and they have contributed to the high price of gas by blocking every proposal to drill for our own oil in the United States. With only seven months left before George Bush has to leave office, Wexler thinks the most important thing for him to do is impeach Bush. Being the most incompetent president since Jimmy Carter is not an impeachable offense. Ironically, this clown Wexler, was the biggest defender of a president who committed the high crime of perjury before a grand jury. I am an equal-opportunity, bi-partisan kind of guy; let’s throw all of them out if they aren’t solving our problems.
Robert Lloyd
Deerfield Beach
Thank you for the coverage
To the Editor:
I can’t thank the Observer enough for your help with the “Jazz at the Arboretum”. The perfectly-placed article in the paper was a great help in advertising the event and many people indicated to us that they were aware of the event because of it.
I think with the inaugural concert we have discovered something that could really impact the city, as well as the Arboretum, in a positive manner and could eventually become a regularly scheduled event. Too bad about all that rain on June 21 but we now know that the idea will work and we will reschedule for the winter months.
I will keep the Observer posted on upcoming events sponsored by the Cultural Committee.
