Letter to the Editor: Gambling with a municipal utility

(Braden Archer of Decorah has submitted the following Letter to the Editor):
 
"You have an annual income of $100,000 and live pretty much within your means, but things are always a little tight with typical outstanding debts and more than enough responsibilities to keep you busy.  You are considering an opportunity to purchase some investment real estate.  It's an exciting prospect, with the possibility of some income (though, uncertain how much at this point), increased diversity in your portfolio, and greater control over your expenses (though, just how much control is yet unclear).  Unfortunately, at this point you're not sure if this investment will cost $50,000 or $200,000 (all of which you'll have to borrow, by the way), and you won't find out until you go through the application process.  That process could take some time, and the fees could amount to somewhere between $10,000 and $20,000, or maybe even more (again, you're not sure at this point and won't know until you're done).  Also, because you haven't been saving up for such an opportunity, you'll have to borrow all the money for the application process as well.  The kicker is: even if you go through the application process and spend between 10% and 20% of your annual income in borrowed funds, your chances of passing the application process are essentially unknown.  But what you do know is that the failure rate is pretty high, and if you fail, you're on the hook for that large chunk of money plus interest for years to come.  Not to mention it's a kind of investment that you have no experience managing.  So, just how much do you like gambling?
 
The City of Decorah is on track to pass a budget of roughly $10 million.  According to Decorah Power, just the application process to the Iowa Utilities Board will cost at least $1 million, but at the Feb 10 meeting at City Hall we learned it could be as much as twice that, or maybe even more.  And this would be borrowed money that the City would have to pay back with interest, even if the IUB rejects the proposal.  Both Alliant and Decorah Power have their own agendas and biases, resulting in a massive amount of uncertainty surrounding this entire proposal, leaving concerned citizens frustrated and unable to get a straight answer from either side.  The one thing that is certain in this situation is that our tax dollars are what will fund this venture, for better or worse.  This would be a completely different sort of situation if the city had the cash on hand to proceed without having to open a new, sizable debt.  I believe I am not alone when I say that there has been more than enough misuse of our tax dollars at the State and Federal levels, and I don't see how this sort of gambling wouldn't qualify as misuse.  Do we really want to bring further abuse of the tax payers all the way down to the local level?"