Is That a Trick Question?

The crafty editors of the Northwest Arkansas Times are at it again. Today's editorial assumes that there is a need to raise water and sewer rates, and that is probably right. Even after the voters approved a sales tax increase to back sewer bonds and cover the $63 million overspending by the city, the Mayor and Council hired an out-of-state consulting firm to tell them that they should raise both water and sewer rates even more.

The editorial factually reported that the consultants found that based on cost-of-service, "the rate increase for water would break down this way: Residential rates would increase by 4.3 percent. Commercial rates would decrease by 4.7 percent. Industrial rates would increase by 27.1 percent. Governmental rates would increase by 21.9 percent. Irrigation rates would increase by 58.2 percent." For sewer rates at cost-of-service, "Residential rates would go up by 8.1 percent. Commercial rates would increase by 25.2 percent. Industrial rates would increase by 50.9 percent. Government rates would increase by 15.2 percent."

The obvious import of these figures are that residential rates should have the smallest increase, and industrial users should pay the largest increase. Mayor Coody and his staff, taking their cue from the Chamber of Commerce, want to ignore cost-of-service pricing and make residential customers subsidize the commercial, government, and industrial users. Some council members will go along with whatever the Mayor wants, some will do whatever the Chamber wants, and a few will try to do what's right for the people. This last group thinks cost-of-service or a flat rate where everyone pays the same would be most fair.

The Times editorial reveals that the newspaper will eventually go along with the Chamber and support making residential consumers pay subsidies for business and industry. Here come their trick questions. First, they ask, "Do industrial rates deserve to be subsidized by what regular residents are paying?" Then they lay the trap by framing the real question thus: "The questions to be debated center on rate philosophies, such as whether or to what extent residential rates should subsidize the rates of jobs-producing local industries."

Here's their clever framing, pitting the impersonal "residential rates" against "jobs-producing local industries." That might suggest a very different answer than asking, "whether and to what extent working stiffs and widows on Social Security should subsidize the rates of profit-making corporations?" How about asking, "Should everyone pay the same equal rates, or should big business get special favors and lower rates?" They even could have asked, "whether and to what extent large industrial users should subsidize residential rates?" You see where this is going. The question of what's fair does not get asked, much less answered.

The Northwest Arkansas Times is part of a corporate chain; it is a member of the Chamber of Commerce and the Fayetteville Economic Development Council. The editors will frame the questions and suggest the answers that are pleasing to their owners, their advertisers, and their golfing buddies. That's what we have come to expect from the corporate media. Roberta Fulbright believed that a community newspaper had a responsibility to the entire community, but those days are gone. Self-interest must be confronted and reframed by alternative voices that consider the people and the public interest. That means you will have to ask the real questions of your mayor and city council and insist that they do the right thing for the citizens.