BAD NEWS: After a recent water bill increase it looks like other costs are going up. I will keep you posted.
GOOD NEWS: The village is finding good ways to save your money by delivering your water bills online. It looks like the Winfield Word might be delivered online too. Both will be substantial money savers.
GOOD NEWS: CDH is giving away $100,000 to local groups. Details are below.
Tim — The complete and utter mismanagement of the water and sewer fund by Birutis is palpable. First of all, Birutis promised to reduce water rates, it was her campaign promise each and every time she ran. The fact is, since Birutis has been on the village board, water and sewer rates in town have escalated from $8.11/1000 to $14.11/1000 gallons of consumption. That’s a wallet crushing 75% increase to the residents in 7 years — with no sign of relief anytime soon. Add to this latest debacle the fact the automated meter readers (AMR) were installed at a cost of more than $1.2 million dollars back sometime in 2006 or early 2007. Of course if what we are reading is true and there is no reason to believe it isn’t — we the taxpayers are now out the $1.2 million dollars because our AMR system will be rendered useless in 2014.
Even more disturbing is the record shows Birutis and Bajor voting in favor of AMR’s however, neither one of them is on the system because they both have wells. My question is how could they vote for something that would not impact them directly — Why didn’t they recues themselves from the vote? Why didn’t they do their homework on such a large expenditure? Is it because it wouldn’t effect their checking accounts?
Birutis was sold to the community as being a “financial genius” when in fact she has proved she is financially challenged. Now a system that she supported with over $1.2 million dollars of taxpayer’s money that had a projected 20+ year return-on-investment is worthless after only 6 years. We can no longer ‘hope’ that Birutis will magically change overnight. We cannot afford to trust the same old empty promises. We need responsible government. We don’t need higher fees, more taxes, or out of control spending. If we are ever going to get change for the better, then we need to get rid of Debbie Birutis.
This isn’t Birutis’ only financial debacle since she’s been in-charge of our finances. It’s been one failure after another, when we look at the $18 million dollar shortfall in road repairs, our police pension only funded at 46%, the inappropriate spending of TIF funds, the reckless spending of the fund balances, and our depleted fund balances, you have to ask yourself how much more are we going to take.
People often wonder why governments are so screwed up — Debbie Birutis is a perfect example of why. Failed policies are being recycled by the Birutis administration, hoping to get different results. Her stewardship of Winfield can be called disastrous at best, and that’s a shame because our hometown has so much potential.
Birutis has been the prefect example of aiming low and hitting the mark.
Regarding Water Bills
Given the emergence of Cloud Computing, it is probably appropriate to consider turning billing into a shared cloud app with other communities, returning billing to internal staff.
Regarding Winfield Word
We have had the capability of electronic delivery for some time, unfortunately the principle difficulty came frm staff, a former trustee and a publisher (who shall remain nameless.
In both cases, the failure to pursue these methods (and others) under multiple administrations has cost us money that could have gone to roads.
Regarding people on Wells
Isn’t it interesting that those who get to make decisions about water price do not have to pay it.
Signed
Impatient
I just don’t understand how the town can put up with Birutis any longer? Birutis and her Winfield United cronies entire economic plan for moving the town forward is to raise fees and taxes on the residents. This water meter debacle is just the latest in a long list of failures by Birutis and Company that has cost the taxpayer’s and property owners in town a lot of their hard earned money.
WE NEED CHANGE IN WINFIELD!!!
Tim, see if you can get more information on this. Are they taking about base units that are mounted in a handful of locations around the village that need upgrading, or are they talking about every one of the sending units installed in every residence? I would hope the system was designed to be independent of a particular telecom/cell provider… and if not, I would be asking why we are beholden to Verizon as opposed to AT&T or Sprint. Also curious why a cell provider is part of this solution in the first place… with the small size of Winfield to cover, why is cell service needed (a service contract) as opposed to perhaps a radio/wi-fi type system?
Birutis is like a snowball rolling downhill. She can’t do anything right she was the driving force on here AMR meters and now they can be sold for scrape. Keep up the good Deb!
Our fund balances are getting smaller!! Oh my!!!
I have the six P’s of logic Piss poor planning predicts poor performance. When we plan without doing all of the homework or asking the right questions 2 + 2 does not = 4. Why does this continue to happen? Because we react too quickly and for some reason no one is checking the solution properly. One would think we would have gone the Wi-fi route….oops? I am with you Tom somethings not right here. Tim here is another Deb problem you get to fix…………..ugh. Once again great tools unfinished homework.
Birutis is so economically challenged that if she opened up a funeral home — no one would die!!!
I agree Birutis has been without question the worst village president in the history of the town. If the Birutis just walked away leaving no one at the helm we would be much better off.
The issues facing Winfield today go well beyond the traditional analysis of the business cycle or the economy; they extend into a new frontier as systemic risks are being misjudged. How else to explain the failure of the Birutis Administration and the Czech Administration before to bring one new project forward or to respond positively on a sustained basis to the residents? Or why downtown businesses are fleeing to other towns, pushing occupancies in the Town Center to historically low levels.
There is no single action that will politely eradicate the egregious and out-of-control spending of the village’s surpluses and the proliferation of unregulated anti-development plans from Winfield United. Sure we have the natural forces of a business downturn but the only solution to what ails piecemeal and short-sided policy responses is fresh new thinking. Birutis and Winfield United’s forced perspective on running the town has not worked and, in many cases, has caused adverse and unintended consequences.
Stated simply, Winfield United’s control and no-growth philosophy coupled with out-of-control spending has been a recipe for disaster. We have suffered many economic and tax consequences, with more on the way. The people can only be relied on so much — any more could jeopardize their ability to remain in Winfield. It is for these reasons and many others that I cautioned the residents when Winfield United comes knocking on their doors and to educate themselves as to what has really happened to our community.