To the editor:
I admit that I have not been following the back and forth of what is going on with the deplorable Housatonic Water Works (HWW) situation, but I am against paying the owners for a failed business that they have not been able to fix.
Aside from municipal services such as fire, police, and sanitation, the two things that everyone in this country is entitled to are clean air and clean water. Despite years of unhealthy water, HWW would like to be treated as a valued utility. But they have proven not to be so.
This has to stop, and here are two solutions:
1. I view this matter through a lens I have dealt with for many years as a commercial real estate broker. When a developer purchases a property with improvements in place intending an alternate use that requires demolishing the current improvements, the market price the developer pays for the property has a deduction for demolition costs. I see no reason why this concept should not apply to Great Barrington’s purchase of HWW.
If you establish a purchase price, the money should be placed in escrow for as long as necessary, with a reduction for the costs necessary to clean up the HWW mess. If costs involved for a cleanup exceed the purchase price, which is likely, so be it.
Expending funds that shifts the responsibility of creating clean water from the Mercers to Great Barrington and to HWW customers I see as an in ill-gotten gain and I am strongly in opposition.
2. In the commercial world, when a business fails, has value which is dissipated due to law suits, or costs to modernize to restore functionality, etc., they are often forced to shut their doors and walk away. To avoid their creditors coming after them, some hand over the keys in exchange for protection from lawsuits, which is a strong incentive not to fight.
Why pay someone for a business that has been peddling contaminated water for years and has failed miserably to cure what is the core of what their business should be: providing clean water?
Regardless of what must be done and the costs involved, that should be on the Mercers, not us. I understand they received a seven-figure largesse from Great Barrington in the past, leaving our town feeling that they were taken advantage of. I say not again.
If you read this and are thinking, “Tsk tsk, Frank should follow this more closely,” my response is: I do not need to follow this to send the above to you. To me, either above suggestions should apply to HWW, a failed business.
Frank Gunsberg
Great Barrington
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