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I guess people are the same everywhere and so easily forget the past especially when the same idiocies are repeated over and over until even those who opposed them originally finally accept the basic concept and argue only on the fringes. Example: everyone tacitly accepts that a flat income tax rate is "regressive" and therefore is "bad." They only argue how "progressive" the tax rate should be, i.e., they argue whether to increase the tax rate on those making over $200,000 per year. How can a flat tax RATE be "regressive"? A flat tax RATE is actually "progressive" since those who make more pay more! It's just not progressive enough to satisfy the looters.

Now to the subject of Mr. Biles' commentary and Mr. Issler's rebuttal. Mr. Biles says that the environmental damage caused by septic systems was not "scientifically documented." True enough. In fact, the scientific evidence is quite the opposite. Properly managed septic systems are environmentally safer on a flat sand-and-muck island such as Marco than a central gravity-operated sewer system which requires an inordinate number of lift stations and a sewer plant situated on the Gulf in a hurricane zone! (I hasten to add that this is not true everywhere, for example, where I live in Western North Carolina. The soil here is hard-packed clay, won't "perc" and the terrain is mountainous which means a sewer system can be designed with minimum use of lift stations. Nonetheless, we generally experience at least one "spill" a year!) But of course, some people still believe the earth is flat and will never accept the evidence that managed on-site wastewater treatment can be environmentally safer than central sewerage.

Yes, I know I'm beating a dead horse, buy my point is that having tacitly accepted central sewerage, the argument has now devolved into whether single-family homeowners should pay more for the service that many of them did not want because some mysterious force suggests that it is more expensive to service single-family houses than condominiums. Perhaps that is true as Mr. Issler contends; perhaps not. I do not have access to the figures to prove the point either way and I doubt Mr. Issler does either. BUT THIS MISSES THE POINT! The cost to service single-family houses would be ZERO had central sewers not been installed and the Chamber of Commerce and cliff dwellers would now have to pay for the whole shebang!

Ed Foster
Former Marco Resident