6 ms·

I agree with some of what you said, but doing it without warning seems unnecessarily harsh. This quote from the article is pretty ripe though: “I was always dr

I agree with some of what you said, but doing it without warning seems unnecessarily harsh. This quote from the article is pretty ripe though: “I was always drawn to the mountains when I was traveling around the country and, to be honest, it was affordable,” she said. “It was off grid. It had a structure. It was away from people. The view is incredible. There’s climbing, hiking. It was somewhere I could afford and have land in Colorado.” I wanted to live off the grid, but not that off the grid.

CodingJeebus 1y ago
I don't agree with how the city made the decision either. But the politics is pretty simple: you are going to support the interests of the people who voted for you over those who have no vote. And those who have no vote in this matter chose to have no vote by living outside of the city.
- rbanffy 1y ago
  > those who have no vote They are residents of some governance unit and, therefore, vote somewhere. Is that possible to have no right to vote because you live in the wrong place?
  - CodingJeebus 1y ago
    > Is that possible to have no right to vote because you live in the wrong place? You don't have the right to vote in a city that you do not live in, and the water system is controlled by the city in this case. I assume they can vote for county offices, and the county is now determining how best they can serve their residents now that the city is unable to.
  - HankStallone 1y ago
    I live a couple miles outside the borders of a town, so I don't get to vote in town elections, just county and township elections. However, I do all my shopping in town, use the town library, drive on the town's roads, belong to some organizations that do charitable work in town, etc. It's fair to say that I'm affected by town politics in a lot of ways, but I don't get in a say in those politics. Sometimes the lines about what affects you are blurry, but the question of whether you get a vote isn't: you do or you don't. Maybe rural people should get a partial vote in town affairs, 3/5 or something like that.
    - jamiek88 1y ago
      Do you pay town taxes? Or do you avoid paying those town taxes and still lament your lack of vote?
      - HankStallone 1y ago
        I don't lament my lack of a vote; I understand that it's an imperfect system. As for whether I pay town taxes, it depends which ones you mean. Nothing on my property tax bill goes directly to the town's coffers for things like the parks and garbage pickup. But I pay the town sales tax every time I go shopping. I pay the town's sizable hotel and restaurant tax every time I go out to eat. I'm pretty sure the town gets some downstream fraction of the gas tax I pay every time I fill up. Of course, all those taxes are voluntary in the sense that I could drive further to a different town. So does that qualify as "taxation without representation"? The Founders would probably say so, but it doesn't bother me enough to get chuffed about; I'm just explaining it for people who haven't experienced it.
      - rbanffy 1y ago
        Wouldn't this kind of reasoning - no taxes, no votes - end up making anyone who doesn't pay taxes, by whatever means, unable to participate in democratic governance? I'm asking for a couple billionaires.
        Jensson 1y ago
        > I'm asking for a couple billionaires. Their companies pay taxes, so no that argument doesn't work. Every company pays some form of employee taxes and so on, there is no way to get around that.
        rbanffy 1y ago
        > Every company pays some form of employee taxes Employees pay those. And companies don't vote (they need to bribe politicians through donations).
- thinkingtoilet 1y ago
  Obviously. The point is cutting off water with no warning in the hottest month of the year is unnecessary cruel. At least give people a few weeks to start accounting for the change.
darth_avocado 1y ago
Not having reliable utilities comes with the territory. If you want to live off grid, you need backups of backups. And a reliable water source is one of them.
- bluGill 1y ago
  There is every reason to think a town water system is reliable and safe. They were not using enough water to matter to the town, and providing the town a nice source of income.
ghaff 1y ago
At least Internet/communications seems to increasingly have other options but some other largely essential utilities often don't.
- CodingJeebus 1y ago
  And sometimes, the private water company that services the county absolutely gouges customers because they're private and can get away with it. I saw this in Texas, where a guy I knew bought a house just outside the city limits to avoid taxes and then his water bill tripled compared to when he was on city water.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    I'm not sure that, where I live, there's a lot of property outside of town/city limits. My water is about $200/year but I use very little outside water.
  - jimnotgym 1y ago
    In the UK, because we are the kind of communist nightmare that terrifies the USA, there is no place outside the city that pays no property tax. Problem solved
    - ghaff 1y ago
      While there are unincorporated areas in the US, I'm not sure no property taxes are a given even in those areas. I live in an incorporated town and definitely pay property taxes and get a variety of town services but do need to handle my own sewer and trash (though I get water and electricity along with fire/police/etc. services as well as public schools as relevant). In fact, I'm not sure the degree to which just bowing out of public schooling is even allowed given that I think that's over half of my town's budget.
  - nemomarx 1y ago
    If you don't buy in bulk you'll spend more. Isn't that just markets?
MangoToupe 1y ago
I grew up drinking from well water. People are seriously overestimating the amount that certain services need to be provided by a municipality. Arguably, the issue here is that we're going to need to deal with the fact that many americans are bad at assessing personal risk. Living in the country is in fact expensive—there are fewer people to amortize costs across, especially in societies that don't have market-based housing (which is arguably why country living is considered cheaper). Water and electricity might be the easiest ways to see this, but it's stuff like "access to a hospital" that causes the most harm—a largely invisible cost until you actually need a hospital (or emergency response, or clearing roads from snow, access to postal delivery, etc etc....). At least you'll notice immediately if you don't have water.
- CodingJeebus 1y ago
  > I grew up drinking from well water. People are seriously overestimating the amount that certain services need to be provided by a municipality. The article addresses this. In this part of CO, wells can cost $25k to drill without any guarantee of hitting water. It's not a panacea for these people.
  - jrgaston 1y ago
    It’s not just Colorado. Used to live in rural northern California and digging a $25k well (typical price I was quoted) came with no guarantee that water would be found.
    - mothballed 1y ago
      $25k is extremely cheap for a well. In my area of Arizona it is common to do well shares, several properties will chip in to drill a $50k-$100k well system, but the cost may be closer to $5k-10K per family.
      - stockresearcher 1y ago
        How deep is the typical well, and is that the primary driver of the cost? I’m east of the Mississippi and my well is 200 feet deep. But this aquifer is fully allocated; all the new construction has to go to a different aquifer with a typical well depth of 700 feet. Once that is fully allocated, I think there is another one at around 1100 feet.
ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
This is a disingenuous argument. Of course they weren't choosing to live with no human contact whatsoever. Besides that, human psychology is such that these people probably couldn't afford anything else and then back-justified their constraints as "drawn to the mountains for hiking and the views".

CodingJeebus 1y ago

I don't agree with how the city made the decision either. But the politics is pretty simple: you are going to support the interests of the people who voted for you over those who have no vote. And those who have no vote in this matter chose to have no vote by living outside of the city.

rbanffy 1y ago
> those who have no vote They are residents of some governance unit and, therefore, vote somewhere. Is that possible to have no right to vote because you live in the wrong place?
- CodingJeebus 1y ago
  > Is that possible to have no right to vote because you live in the wrong place? You don't have the right to vote in a city that you do not live in, and the water system is controlled by the city in this case. I assume they can vote for county offices, and the county is now determining how best they can serve their residents now that the city is unable to.
- HankStallone 1y ago
  I live a couple miles outside the borders of a town, so I don't get to vote in town elections, just county and township elections. However, I do all my shopping in town, use the town library, drive on the town's roads, belong to some organizations that do charitable work in town, etc. It's fair to say that I'm affected by town politics in a lot of ways, but I don't get in a say in those politics. Sometimes the lines about what affects you are blurry, but the question of whether you get a vote isn't: you do or you don't. Maybe rural people should get a partial vote in town affairs, 3/5 or something like that.
  - jamiek88 1y ago
    Do you pay town taxes? Or do you avoid paying those town taxes and still lament your lack of vote?
    - HankStallone 1y ago
      I don't lament my lack of a vote; I understand that it's an imperfect system. As for whether I pay town taxes, it depends which ones you mean. Nothing on my property tax bill goes directly to the town's coffers for things like the parks and garbage pickup. But I pay the town sales tax every time I go shopping. I pay the town's sizable hotel and restaurant tax every time I go out to eat. I'm pretty sure the town gets some downstream fraction of the gas tax I pay every time I fill up. Of course, all those taxes are voluntary in the sense that I could drive further to a different town. So does that qualify as "taxation without representation"? The Founders would probably say so, but it doesn't bother me enough to get chuffed about; I'm just explaining it for people who haven't experienced it.
    - rbanffy 1y ago
      Wouldn't this kind of reasoning - no taxes, no votes - end up making anyone who doesn't pay taxes, by whatever means, unable to participate in democratic governance? I'm asking for a couple billionaires.
      - Jensson 1y ago
        > I'm asking for a couple billionaires. Their companies pay taxes, so no that argument doesn't work. Every company pays some form of employee taxes and so on, there is no way to get around that.
        rbanffy 1y ago
        > Every company pays some form of employee taxes Employees pay those. And companies don't vote (they need to bribe politicians through donations).
thinkingtoilet 1y ago
Obviously. The point is cutting off water with no warning in the hottest month of the year is unnecessary cruel. At least give people a few weeks to start accounting for the change.

darth_avocado 1y ago

Not having reliable utilities comes with the territory. If you want to live off grid, you need backups of backups. And a reliable water source is one of them.

bluGill 1y ago
There is every reason to think a town water system is reliable and safe. They were not using enough water to matter to the town, and providing the town a nice source of income.

ghaff 1y ago

At least Internet/communications seems to increasingly have other options but some other largely essential utilities often don't.

CodingJeebus 1y ago
And sometimes, the private water company that services the county absolutely gouges customers because they're private and can get away with it. I saw this in Texas, where a guy I knew bought a house just outside the city limits to avoid taxes and then his water bill tripled compared to when he was on city water.
- ghaff 1y ago
  I'm not sure that, where I live, there's a lot of property outside of town/city limits. My water is about $200/year but I use very little outside water.
- jimnotgym 1y ago
  In the UK, because we are the kind of communist nightmare that terrifies the USA, there is no place outside the city that pays no property tax. Problem solved
  - ghaff 1y ago
    While there are unincorporated areas in the US, I'm not sure no property taxes are a given even in those areas. I live in an incorporated town and definitely pay property taxes and get a variety of town services but do need to handle my own sewer and trash (though I get water and electricity along with fire/police/etc. services as well as public schools as relevant). In fact, I'm not sure the degree to which just bowing out of public schooling is even allowed given that I think that's over half of my town's budget.
- nemomarx 1y ago
  If you don't buy in bulk you'll spend more. Isn't that just markets?

MangoToupe 1y ago

I grew up drinking from well water. People are seriously overestimating the amount that certain services need to be provided by a municipality. Arguably, the issue here is that we're going to need to deal with the fact that many americans are bad at assessing personal risk. Living in the country is in fact expensive—there are fewer people to amortize costs across, especially in societies that don't have market-based housing (which is arguably why country living is considered cheaper). Water and electricity might be the easiest ways to see this, but it's stuff like "access to a hospital" that causes the most harm—a largely invisible cost until you actually need a hospital (or emergency response, or clearing roads from snow, access to postal delivery, etc etc....). At least you'll notice immediately if you don't have water.

CodingJeebus 1y ago
> I grew up drinking from well water. People are seriously overestimating the amount that certain services need to be provided by a municipality. The article addresses this. In this part of CO, wells can cost $25k to drill without any guarantee of hitting water. It's not a panacea for these people.
- jrgaston 1y ago
  It’s not just Colorado. Used to live in rural northern California and digging a $25k well (typical price I was quoted) came with no guarantee that water would be found.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    $25k is extremely cheap for a well. In my area of Arizona it is common to do well shares, several properties will chip in to drill a $50k-$100k well system, but the cost may be closer to $5k-10K per family.
    - stockresearcher 1y ago
      How deep is the typical well, and is that the primary driver of the cost? I’m east of the Mississippi and my well is 200 feet deep. But this aquifer is fully allocated; all the new construction has to go to a different aquifer with a typical well depth of 700 feet. Once that is fully allocated, I think there is another one at around 1100 feet.

ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago

This is a disingenuous argument. Of course they weren't choosing to live with no human contact whatsoever. Besides that, human psychology is such that these people probably couldn't afford anything else and then back-justified their constraints as "drawn to the mountains for hiking and the views".