Letter writer John C. Ulrich's suggests that instead of helping to fund infrastructure for the proposed Port Covington project Baltimore City float a $500 million bond to fix our decaying water and sewer infrastructure ("There are better ways to spend $535 million," May 25).
But he overlooks a critical issue of funding. If the city floats the bond for the water project it will be burdened for years paying off those bonds without any additional revenue to ease the burden.
The only way to make that project self-funding would be to raise water and sewer rates precipitously at a time when many Baltimore-area residents are already struggling to pay their water bill and couldn't not afford such an increase.
But if the bond package were directed toward Port Covington, and properly structured, the increased value of the property would generate many millions of dollars of income every year for the city for decades to come.
In addition to new property taxes, there would be new income taxes derived from the jobs created, and more income from the new business that would be generated. The increased revenue would then pay off the bonds without additional cost to the city.
Perhaps there would even be revenue left over to put into Mr. Ulrich's water system update or other much-needed projects. But all of those new funds would be missing if the city foated bonds simply to improve water infrastructure, as Mr. Ulrich suggests.
For that reason I believe the city should fast-track approval of the Port Covington project and get it started and finished as soon as possible Then the city could then appropriate the additional revenue where it thinks it is most needed.
Iver Minded, Cockeysville