SCRANTON TIMES-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL: As most of Pennsylvania’s municipal governments and urban centers struggle, the state Legislature, Gov. Tom Corbett and the state Public Utility Commission appear determined to make that struggle worse.
Across Pennsylvania, cities like Scranton have struggled not only with their internecine political problems but with matters they can’t control, such as population shifts to the suburbs and beyond that diminish urban tax bases. That leaves cities to care for aging infrastructure, the social service burden for entire regions and the costs of their own operations…
So, the law requires urban water customers to subsidize the utility’s expansion into the wastewater treatment business, which itself is dubious public policy. Worse, it encourages urban sprawl against the broader interests of urban communities, by requiring urban water customers to pay for required rural sewer systems… (more)
