The problem is that goat has already left his hoof prints in the rug.

I believe the petition presented to Coatesville City Council to put Coatesville City Manager Ted Reed on leave was sort of misplaced aggression. Like I said before I do not believe there was an actual conflict of interest in Mr. Reed helping Coatesville to get a rate reduction from the PUC. Mr. Reed’s expertise in water department management may have helped us get the best deal we could.

The new sewage treatment plant really does not involve the City of Coatesville. We have about 12,000 residents. We once had 20,000 residents and the old sewage treatment plant could have easily accommodated Coatesville’s population rebounding to 20,000. In other words Coatesville already had its share of the sewage treatment plant covered for maybe a decade.  

The sewage treatment plant is mostly for a once expected about 10,000 new housing starts in Valley Township and additional new homes in other municipalities. And then the worldwide mortgage derivative Ponzi scheme collapsed and we had nearly had a worldwide great depression.

There is still a probability that more housing will be built.  But if those new housing starts begin 10 or more years from now I think most of them will be in Coatesville or within close proximity to the train station.  

The reason I think most of the new development will be in Coatesville is, to put it in a bluntly, because in 10 years the price of gas will almost certainly be more than five dollars a gallon and may possibly be more than ten dollars a gallon. We will have electric cars but the lowest cost option will still be public transit. The days of cars, interstates and spread out suburban development are history.

I think Karl Chetty’s thinking that Coatesville could be a city of 100,000 is not farfetched. I think the six or more bedroom “trophy homes” on half acre lots certainly will be a relic of the past long before their intended life cycle is over. In other words I think the sewage treatment plant will be used to its capacity but not be used as it was originally intended.

But until the housing starts begin a smaller population is stuck with paying a bill designed to be spread over a much larger population.

All this is very hard to explain to the people who are stuck paying the bills. They are looking for a scapegoat. I think those people who signed the petition will look at last night’s Coatesville City Council meeting as an effort to sweep their petition under the rug. The problem is that goat has already left his hoof prints in the rug. We didn’t even start paying the increased bills. It’s a dangerous thing to do.

Read Karl Marking's latest blog post:

My Thoughts on Mr. Reed’s Petition Rebuttal

For more of what I wrote about the petition put "petition into the Google Search This Blog on Coatesville Dems blog