Invisible $100m invoices?!? Letter to the Editor

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Letter to the editor. Journal. 

A confession: As diligent as I am, I'm not always diligent enough. Same with you? Same with the city?

Purchasing a house in Cortez recently, it was mumbled to me maybe several times about inspecting my sewer pipes. I did, but I could have done better. And now I've got a $9,000 project I didn't anticipate. The house is worthless without sewer pipes that work.

And it didn't occur to me to look at the financial health of Cortez with respect to future home value. 

I wanted the house. I wanted a nice story. I had other things to invest my time in. So I denied to myself that maybe I should have done deeper.

And now do I understand we have $100's of millions of dollars of deferred maintenance, repairs, replacement of everything from our water system, roads.. to our rec center? Not prominently acknowledged and wrestled with  in our public dialog?

March 10th the City said that we're in great financial shape! And there was no mention of these $100's million of deferred costs (except as nice to have amenities?!?!?). I'm not quibbling over words, but whether there are 100 million must tackle challenges were not talking about. 

We need a complete accounting. If we shouldn't be concerned, we need to be told in detail, why we shouldn't be concerned. With ALL of the City's future costs transparently accounted for.





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