Water commission members: step down

Every member of the DuPage Water Commission should be forced to resign, and there should be an investigation into the financial management of the commission. It is disingenuous of the commissioners to say no one knew what was happening except the former finance administrator. The whole debacle resonates of the Enron disaster: everybody responsible for decision making and voting on spending denying all knowledge of millions of dollars being spent. Amazing.

I live in unincorporated DuPage County near Lombard. Our neighborhoods are working with the county public works department to get Lake Michigan water brought into our communities. I have tried to ascertain if the commission could make any funds available. I always got a resounding no, even though I was told that the commission had collected countywide sales tax since the mid-1980s. The commission also collected real estate taxes from 1985-1990. Property owners still can see a line item on their tax bills for a levy, just in case the commissioners decide to impose the tax again.

I have been following stories in the newspapers about this depletion of the commission's reserves, supposedly done single-handedly by the finance administrator.

What perhaps outrages me more, though, is learning that the commission has been charging its customers, the same municipalities that have its mayors sitting on the commission, less than it pays for the water. Guess who subsidizes the differences? Us, the people paying sales tax in DuPage County. Wait, there's more: These same commission-member mayors authorized a $40 million "rebate" to their customers, their own municipalities, in 2008. That same year, the DuPage County Board took $15 million from the commission's revenues. Smaller "rebates" were also given in previous years.

It's time to have a thorough investigation of the commission and hold people accountable for the travesty of what has happened.

Sandy Saxena

Lombard area