There you have it! A few local leaders and former leaders are pointing to the Attorney General’s report about allegations of wrongdoing for at least the last 20 years by the Martin County Water District Board as glowing proof that nothing was wrong … no criminal charges will be filed.

The first of three findings is an allegation that a $3 million grant received between 1999 and 2002 was stolen.

Stolen?

We reported that it couldn’t be accounted for, and the Kentucky Public Service Commission came to the same conclusion when it opened its investigation back in 2002. The $3 million was supposed to renovate and upgrade the system. Instead, it was all spent on the raw water intake.

The more glaring part of this fiasco is the water district didn’t follow statutory guidelines and get PSC approval before undertaking any project funded by the $3 million. The water district was able to show receipts for roughly $2.8 in work done on the intake. For that reason, there was no indictment. The PSC back then could have taken action. It didn’t. The money in our opinion was squandered on an intake that’s still causing us problems.

The second allegation was water board members or others were receiving free water. That point cannot be proven since old delinquent bills are simply written off as “uncollectable.”

The third allegation is misuse of district funds due to spending policies.

Until this current board, there was no policy to monitor fuel or supplies charges. In short, how can one show that purchases were legitimate or not?

Some folks are citing this as an example that everything was above board and nothing was done incorrectly — that all the complainers of poor water service and quality are radicals and troublemakers.

Yeah … this report by the Attorney General confirms this!

Really? So why did this same agency just a few months ago recommend placing the water district into receivership to solve the problem of years of neglect and mismanagement?

Even the PSC was more lenient. Receivership removes all local control — no board. That’s the position of the Attorney General and that means its investigation revealed its office had no confidence in continued local governance of our water utility.

The PSC is more lenient in that the water district has at least a shot of hiring a management company to run the day-to-day operation of the system with the board retaining some measure of local control. Failure to comply with this PSC order means the PSC will put the district into receivership.

Either way, water customers will be forced to bear the cost. That’s the price you pay for poor leadership, which we have had in abundance.