Letter: SLVWD campus cost far greater than stated

EDITOR,
In their quest for a 65 percent rate increase, the San Lorenzo Valley Water District has stated that their 17,500-square-foot new campus building in downtown Boulder Creek will cost $6 million. But it was recently discovered that the SLVWD had already spent nearly $3.5 million in pre-construction expenditures such as real estate, permits, landscape and architectural design. Now, after looking at their own accounting it appears there is an additional $3.3 million in loan costs and interest that must have slipped their minds during their press interviews, board meetings, and public relations missives. That’s a grand total of $12.8 million! All of this after having already spent $500,000 remodeling their existing building.
The SLVWD places this campus Taj Mahal in the category of “infrastructure projects” which is clearly an improper use of public funds, not to mention terribly misleading to the good people of the San Lorenzo Valley.
These facts and figures can be found in the district’s own “Final 2013 Water and Wastewater Charges Study.
For more information about community efforts to hold the SLVWD accountable to the citizens of the San Lorenzo Valley, please visit www.slvwd.co.
For documentation of the SLVWD campus expenditures, please visit http://www.slvwd.co/dp/content/white-paper-administrative-campus
It is time to start canvassing the intelligent people who live in the San Lorenzo Valley and find three new candidates to run for office in 2014.
Larry Fogelquist, Scotts Valley