3 Questions for Davidson's CIP Discussion

Posted as a comment over at DavidsonNews.net Board resumes discussion of capital projects Tuesday.

In my opinion, there are three questions the Board should answer for the public before continuing with the CIP discussions. Without answers to these it is very difficult for citizens to have the necessary parameters to judge if these discussions are even starting from a sound footing.

1. How much debt is Davidson willing to owe Mooresville as part of this spending plan? Any spending at this point will effectively be on the Mooresville credit card. That being the case, only absolutely critical items should be considered.

2. What are the growth projections and timelines provided and supported by Mi-Connection management which will result in lower annual subsidies from Davidson? Only when these annual subsidies fall below $1 million will Davidson begin to pay down our accumulated debt to Mooresville.

3. Based on the combined proposed spending and the debt payoff to Mooresville, when can Davidson citizens possibly expect to see any lowering of tax rates and/or fees which have been kept artificially high due to the years of Mi-Connection subsidies? If the answer is “never” or “we don’t know”, that’s fine. However, the public has expected all along that some relief would be coming when the subsidies were lowered.

Having attended several of these meetings, I have yet to hear these items publicly discussed. Admittedly, I may have missed it, but if these critical items have been made public it would be useful information for the Town to publish at this point.

More to come after tomorrow's meeting...