Publisher's Jack Mitchell commentary, "Elected Officials at AWA Show Lack of Leadership" that took issue with the low pay the current Directors of the AWA now receive made for strange reading.

How come, Jack, you failed to ask why was there so much effort spent on this year's budget as compared to last year's budget? The Old Board of 2008, of which Terry Moore was a member, summarily adopted their budget, I understand, in just over two hours. Don't you find it strange that the long hours the Board spent struggling to keep costs down are cast in a light that whatever direction the Board members moved, you and like minded would fault their efforts.

I attended those budget workshops and witnessed the awful mess presented to the new Board. Some may say investigative reporting was lacking; otherwise, why on the one hand would you tout President Terry Moore as an exemplary example what a government employee should be and then ignore his complaint of the laborious time consuming efforts he and the other members were spending trying to unravel the 2009-2010 mess, called a budget.

At least you acknowledge the $ 5,00 an hour as a measure of the enormous amount of time this Board was spending trying to hold down the cost of the AWA. From what I gather you want to them work for less which brings up another question. How much are you paying your employees ?

One thing for sure, Jack, at least you have paved the way for further disclosure of the inner workings of the AWA and how we might get the rates down. I have a letter from Terry Moore, 1-28-09. A key sentence reads: "I agree that existing water users should not pay for new growth."

Jack, lets hold him to that. But how can this be, when the future growth folks are not on the billing list? As long as AWA budgets contain provisions such as studies for raising the dam at Bear River Reservoir, I doubt there will ever be rate reductions for us rate payers.