Cannon: Raising rates without mulling cost savings is bad governing

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By now, everyone has probably heard that Seaford mayoral candidate and City Councilman Matt MacCoy made the motion and voted to hike electric rates $10 a month for the typical customer.

This 7.5% increase is well above the approximately 3% current rate of inflation. And it’s going to cost Seaford customers at least $434,000 more than necessary.

That $434,000-in-new-revenue part of the rate increase should raise red flags about the current broken governing process of the outgoing mayor and (some of) City Council.

Only Councilman James King expressed doubts about raising electric rates. King wanted to delay the vote on the electric rate increase to consider cutting expenses.

King said, “We have never sat up here and talked once about cutting any expenses.” In essence, King gave notice that the mayor and City Council were months away from having solid budget provisions in place. There were/are unresolved decisions to be made, including cutting nonessential expenses and needs versus wants.

Councilman Dan Henderson opposed King’s idea of temporarily delaying the vote on the electric rate increase to use the Jan. 26 all-day planning session to cut some expenses. For Henderson, the budget process should “take ... months,” not “two weeks.”

Yet, on Jan. 9, councilmen MacCoy, Mike Bradley, Orlando Holland and Henderson voted yes for the electric rate increase without knowing how much revenue (especially new revenue) would be needed to fund the not-yet-completed budget.

Councilman King cast the only no vote, saying, “I am completely against it.”

Importantly, all these same sitting council members have shown interest in at least one of the elected positions (mayor and two seats on City Council) to be decided April 20.

On this upcoming April 20 Election Day, my votes will be for a new mayor and City Council members who will govern and make decisions differently:

  • With decisions for cost cutting an essential part of the budget process.
  • With a firm grip on the real priorities within the budget.
  • To then, and only then, vote on raising rates/taxes/fees/etc.

Which one(s) will you want making future decisions?

Dan Cannon

Seaford

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