On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 17:16:26 -0800, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:

Sometimes that's exactly what happens and sometimes not.
There was an interesting piece recently about some podunk town and their new
waste treatment plant.
I can't remember where I saw it but it had to do with the scams (all legal)
that were run on local governments.
In the instance I viewed, several city council members might end up in jail.
==========
Among others see Harrisburg PA.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...-correct-.html

snip
The $68 million in debt service payments that Harrisburg faces in
connection with the construction of a waste incinerator this year
is four times what the city of 47,000 expects to raise through
property taxes, and $4 million more than the city’s entire
proposed operating budget.
snip

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...mTpygD9F11AT80
Incinerator project burns up Pa. capital's cash

By MARC LEVY (AP) – 4 days ago

HARRISBURG, Pa. — This capital city was near total collapse three
decades ago — its department stores, theaters and trolleys were
gone, replaced by vacant buildings and streets devoid of any
nightlife.

A huge effort, thanks partly to an energetic mayor, brought the
Susquehanna River city of 47,000 back from the brink. Today,
professionals and state office workers pack the restaurants,
hotels and arts venues that helped restore its respectability.

Along the way, city leaders thought they could transform their
aging, debt-laden trash incinerator into a clean, efficient
moneymaker. But costs exploded and massive debt payments due this
year on the incinerator threaten to drag the city into
bankruptcy.
snip
Some residents wonder whether fear of a huge property tax hike to
help pay down the $280-plus million in debt tied to the
incinerator will spur a rash of "for-sale" signs just as the city
had hoped to end a 60-year population slide.

"We're in trouble," said Bill Cluck, an environmental and
land-use lawyer who lives in Harrisburg and closely monitors city
affairs. "If you can get out of the city, get out of the city.
That's the perception."

Harrisburg's bad credit rating, in part, reflects the stretched
finances of a city devastated by the loss of its heavy
manufacturing core. Almost half its property is tax-exempt and
more than a quarter of its families live in poverty, nearly three
times the national rate, census figures show.

Bad spending decisions are synonymous with Harrisburg's recent
history. Former Mayor Stephen Reed was sharply criticized for
secretly spending millions of dollars in public money on such
artifacts as an Egyptian mummy and a bright red Wells Fargo & Co.
stagecoach for museums that never got built.

The trash incinerator began operating in view of a large housing
project on the city's industrial southern edge in 1972, one of
scores of incinerators built across the country in the last 40
years. It first generated steam heat for steel mills and downtown
office buildings and in the 1980s, it began generating
electricity.

But it also spewed cancer-causing dioxins into the air, and
pressure from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency led to the
plant's shutdown in 2003. It didn't become fully operational
again until 2008, after the costly overhaul.

The incinerator still isn't making money, even with city
residents paying some of the highest trash disposal fees in the
country.

With its hands tied by a stagnant tax base even before the
recession, Harrisburg faces debt payments on the incinerator this
year of $68 million, larger than the city's entire operating
budget. Little to no money in the city's budget is set aside for
the debt, which includes millions of dollars coming due in the
next two months.
snip


Unka George (George McDuffee)
...............................
The past is a foreign country;
they do things differently there.
L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author.
The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).