Editor, Gazette-Journal:

If one looks around the country, you’ll see a lot of municipal utilities in financial troubles. Some locales have floated public bond issues in attempts to solve their money woes; but with questionable credit ratings and the buyers of these instruments rightly concerned about the ability to get their money back—let alone a return—these sales are not such a sure thing anymore.

So along comes Keith Hodges following his win in last November’s Delegate contest to carry water for Gloucester’s sewer and water utilities in an attempt to allow the county to go after residents who are not using nor needing the county’s water or sewage. That would be the scores of residents who have wells and septic systems, and the responsibility to maintain and repair and replace them on their own with their own—not taxpayers’—money.

The language of the bill HB760 for which Delegate Hodges is the "patron" uses the ...