La Conner Weekly News - Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper

Last week the Town of La Conner paid the City of Anacortes $6,940 for reconciliation of the water bill for 2020. I objected to this charge and requested a meeting of the town’s utilities committee to explore alternatives. Their answer was “don’t rock the boat.” They were afraid that the Anacortes finance director would impose harsh measures in retaliation. After all, according to the latest audit, Anacortes made a profit of $2,197,437 off of water operations in 2020.

All I wanted was for Anacortes to follow their own procedures with regard to customer records (allocate costs by number of records vs. by volume) and attorney fees (50/50 split in accordance with the budget vs. by volume). I thought it unfair for us to pay for irrigation water when Anacortes enjoys the revenue from that activity. I was in no way advocating a rewrite of the water supply agreement.

By my calculations we should have received a refund of $3,183 for 2020. So, I am writing to the senior accountant of Anacortes to see if he agrees.

Dan O’Donnell

La Conner