Technology & MSG

My annual Front Foot Benefit invoice arrived last week. For those unfamiliar, some of us Maryland peeps have to pay for the “construction & installation of water & sewer systems” that are connected to our homes. Do we pay the County? No. The State? No. I pay some company that paid the $7,200 up front and I pay them over a 30 year period.

In other words, the invoice is a crisp 8-1/2 by 11-inch sheet of paper informing me that I owe more money to some company whom I’ll never hear from otherwise or receive any benefit from. They have no experience laying water/sewage lines, nor are they responsible should anything go wrong with said lines. Personally, I’d rather pay the county. Insert some comment here about accountability or something.

These bills are obnoxious. For those whose poo smells like roses I’d recommend filing a complaint to have the sewage portion of the installation costs refunded, since you probably wouldn’t need a functioning sewer hookup. A few adminitrative complaints as well:

• There’s a bold line across the bottom fourth of the invoice. “Detach” is printed just below the line. How? There’s no perforated area! Had I known scissors — which I didn’t bring into the office today — were going to be required I would have probably stayed home. The line should read “cut here” or something.
• The return envelope is 6″ wide. The now-detachedtorn invoice will have to be folded to be inserted with the check. The original invoice was in a legal sized envelope; that’s weird too, since standard letter and legal sized paper can both fit in a legal-sized envelope.
• I’ve got to provide a stamp. Couldn’t they just add 39¢ to the bill and provide a pre-paid envelope? It’s not a utility bill that you can setup to pay online. Everyone has to mail ‘em in. If it weren’t for electronic bill pay, I’d think that all bills should be that way. Billers would be able to earn interest on the postage until the postage bill was due; all adds to days working capital.

Front Foot Benefit is calculated roughly from the linear feet of your property line. Thus, corner lots pay more. I doubt that it cost $514 per foot to install water and sewer lines in front of my place.

Bah.

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