Despite long-lingering questions over whether Cedar Glen residents were ever provided with the improvements to the water system they have been paying for over the last three decades, the board of supervisors this week made a crucial commitment toward proceeding with revamping that system at further expense to those residents.
Shortly after Arrowhead Manor was placed into receivership in 2003, water rates were raised over 400 percent. The county borrowed $800,000 to acquire the water company and its assets and to make necessary improvements to it. $305,000 of that loan money was used to buy Arrowhead Manor. By 2008, the loan principal, penalties, and interest had risen to approximately $2,000,000.
At present, the $800,000 loan is not being repaid, but local water users are still paying greatly inflated prices for water.
"The Cedar Glen water situation is based on several layers of fraud and the county supervisors are now in jeopardy of becoming accomplices in this fraud," said area resident Hugh Campbell. "There is a reason people are not paying these bills and it is the responsibility of the board of supervisors to investigate the reason. The original fraud took place in 1980 when through the Safe Drinking Water Bond Act the owners of the Arrowhead Manor Water Company, Ernie and Jean Schoettmer, were awarded $910,510. The fraud consisted of how that money was ‘not used," Campbell said.
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