Tri-City Regional Sanitary District Board has been working on this project for over eight years. The Board’s president, Bob Zache, has been actively involved on wastewater boards for nearly 30 years. When asked the most basic of questions about TRSD’s current project, Bob claims he doesn’t know the answer or claims he doesn’t understand the questions. 

That should be a huge red flag to the community. If Bob Zache doesn’t understand, it is frightening that he’s leading the charge in saddling residents with tens of millions of dollars of debt! 

TRSD operates on taxpayer funds, and the residents of the Tri-City area have been paying tax to TRSD for years. TRSD has spent hundreds of thousands of tax-payer funds moving their project forward. As a taxpayer, residents have a right to know exactly what’s going on and where the funds are being spent. Many residents who have attended TRSD meetings in the past stopped attending because nothing of substance was explained at the meetings. The Board entered into Executive Session to discuss items of importance. When asked for information, TRSD responds that the information is confidential as it was discussed in Executive Session. Wastewater projects require published public meetings explaining the issues to be discussed. It is illegal for a taxing district to withhold pertinent information from taxpaying residents who ask for information. Mr. Zache is fully aware that requests for information are being denied.

At the last TRSD meeting, I asked Bob Zache a simple question: “According to the information I gathered from the TRSD website and documents, your figures indicate that each resident of Tri-City will be required to pay a minimum of $25,000 in taxes to repay the loan, plus an additional $2,700 annual maintenance and operations of the treatment plant, with the recent 41% administration tax increase on top of the loan and annual maintenance and operations. Your documents show the median annual wage of Tri-City residents is $26,000 per year, how do you expect the residents of Tri-City to repay that loan?” Bob Zache’s answer, “I haven’t thought of that. That’s why we have an engineer.” 

As president of a wastewater board, Bob Zache should understand documents submitted for such a large project and must have an engineer that regularly attends meetings to explain the things he doesn’t understand. The contracted engineer is either not present to answer questions or gets very aggravated when he is present to answer questions.

Another comment I heard from Bob was “The loan is spread out over 40 years, so it’s not a big deal.”  It is a big deal when you’re paying for an overpriced project!

Bob Zache will not have to repay the loan; he lives in an area serviced by Town of Miami’s wastewater plant.

It is my opinion that the taxpayers of Tri-City are not properly represented and that the engineering firm has been given an open checkbook.