The following letter to the editor was submitted by Andover resident Bob Pokress. The views expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Andover News. You can learn more about our policy on opinion and commentary on our Mission and Policies page.
Andover News’s  May 29th article about Andover considering what would be a monster water rate increase – a 38 percent increase over the next three years! – cited Andover Town Manager Andrew Flanagan as saying, that Andover’s current water rates are significantly lower than those in comparable communities and a goal of his rate increase proposal is to “make sure the town’s rates remain competitive.”
Only in George Orwell’s book 1984,   where Doublespeak is the currency of how the authoritarian regime of Big Brother in Oceana manipulates its subservient population, would a huge water rate increase be called a means to “remain competitive.”Â
First off, with water a monopoly service, it is disingenuous of the members of our Select Board and our Town Manager to refer to water service as a competitive service. Last time I looked, we residents of Andover did not have any choice from whom we get our water. Secondly, a raise in prices is not how businesses remain competitive. Businesses remain competitive by offering more for the same price or at a lower price. What the Select Board is proposing is totally the opposite of “remaining competitive.”
When town residents were pitched, and pitched very hard by at least one current member of the Select Board, to sell water to North Reading, all kinds of promises were made to voters to vote to approve selling water to North Reading, including how the revenue from North Reading would cover the repair and maintenance expenses of our town water system and keep our water rates very low. With this proposal for a monster rate increase in water, our Select Board is breeching the promise that they made to us when the proposal to sell water to North Reading was being sold to voters.
Shame on the Select Board for being so blatant in ignoring what they promised to town residents, especially in the face of and on top of the huge annual residential property taxes that they have socked town residents with over the past six years.
Bob Pokress
Andover
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