To the Editor:

Looking back on the hearing held last month, it appears that the C2AE Engineering Co. is driving this train right over a cliff, while our Town Board meekly pays all the bills, no questions asked, with money borrowed in our name.

An awful lot of confusing, misleading, and downright false information was handed out. The mantra has been that the only way out of our constantly growing debt of over $1 million is to borrow another $20 million on top of it to activate a grant which would magically repay it. This is nonsense.

I believe that the true cost of this project would be a minimum of $20 million, based on C2AE’s own estimate from a year ago. Their financing projection of $15 million ignores the elephant in the room of interest cost, which is huge: even grants have to be financed until project completion. Add the BAN loans rolled in, plus inflation, and the price could go even higher.

Totally not addressed was that the main USDA grant expires this month, and the almost $2.6 million heedlessly borrowed 3 years ago comes due at the same time; that insisting on going to bid will “ONLY” cost another $20,000 overlooks all the other wasteful spending that will continue unabated – for how much longer?

With this project, the grim reality is that each resident would be saddled with an astronomical debt – well over $3,000 annually, on top of usage fees for at least 36 years. Even NY State insists that these projects be needed, benefit all the property owners, and not be an excessive burden on them.

We are, indeed, being driven like sheep to the slaughter. If you want to survive, stand up, get informed, and let us together put an immediate stop to this travesty.

Kinga Snell
Potsdam