Shannon L. Pagano, of Marcellus, is a Professional Engineer with over 25 years experience in public infrastructure administration in Central New York. She is the former Commissioner of Onondaga County Department of Water Environment Protection.
New Yorkers are right to be alarmed by rising electric bills. The debate over electric rates is loud, urgent and unavoidable, but also dangerously incomplete. Electricity is only the most visible part of a much larger utility affordability problem that has been building for years.
Water, sewer, stormwater and other public systems face the same pressures: aging infrastructure, increasing health and environmental regulations, rising operating costs, deferred maintenance, and capital needs that can no longer be postponed. What looks like a sudden spike in monthly bills is often the accumulated cost of years of delay — postponed repairs, deferred replacements, suppressed rates and a reluctance to confront the true cost of reliable service…