Holiday World, town at odds over water usage

I know nothing about the whole situation, so I won't comment on that. But, I did find it a little amusing the AP put right at the end of the article the 1,700 gallon tipping water bucket new for 2008. It's almost like they were trying to say HW wastes water. The article would have been much more neutral without that sentence.

"Jim Davidson, a member of the Christmas Lake Village board of directors, said park patrons -- not Santa Claus residents -- should be paying for the water supply for the theme park about 35 miles east of Evansville."

Holiday World has agreed to pay a rate far exceeding residential rates, and committed $300,000.00 to get the project started. It sounds to me like the park patrons will be the ones paying for the bulk of the water supply already.

Good plublicty or bad plublicty, but it is still plublicity

HW should dig a really big well or collect rainwater and tell the city to shove it. :) It sounds like they're being cooperative, but only want to pay their share - not everyone's. Nothing wrong with that. If the gated community wants a new water service, they should pay for it.

Considering that they're gonna pay a higher rate per gallon of water used than anyone else in Santa Claus, I think that the ticket tax idea should get nixed. They're paying for all the water they're using (which is fair) and only help increase the amount of tourists that spend money at other businesses in the community.

My dreams of wanting to run a theme park ended when Will told me that worrying about their water supply kept him up at night, and that he was hugely relieved when they got a web application that let him check the levels in their main water tank from home.

This has been brewing for a long while now.

Have Fun

Paul

Shades of Michigan's Adventure.

This is abso-freakin-lutely rediculous. HW has brought more money and development into Santa Claus and the surrounding towns (Dale, Chrisney, etc.) than these places could ever dream of. I don't think it's too much to argue that these towns might cease to exist without the economic catalysts that HW provides.

I live 40 miles from HW so I've heard a little bit more on this. What the article fails to mention is that local residents want to pay NOTHING for the expansion in water usage. That's right, they want all of the benfits without paying any of the costs. HW has offered to pay to get the project off the ground and then pay 50% of the annual costs (taxes) for the additional water usage. The residents and businesses (who will obviously use the additional water capacity also) would split the other 50% in annual taxes amongst themselves. I believe this is a fair arangement. I haven't seen the numbers, but I can't imagine that it would be more than $5-10 extra a month per household.

Considering all that HW has given that area of Indiana, it really is a slap in the face to them, especially when you consider that it is in EVERYONE'S best interest, not just HW. This expansion would help area farms fend off annual drought and could allow more large scale establishments (ie hotels, etc) to be built without worry of "running dry".

Again, I am almost beside myself on this one. HW has done nothing but give and give to Southern Indiana and the second it asks for a little help people start complaining. And the fact that many of these people owe their homes to HW's investment in the area's land and infrastructure makes me sick. (I'm looking at you and your $500K-1M Homes Christmas Lake Villiage!) Pay your respects to the company that lets you have what you have and pay your fair share. The majority of area residents would have no problem paying the increase.

If I have to pay a ticket tax, fine. That's no problem. But you can rest assured that no other establishment in Santa Claus will get any of my money if that becomes the case. And that gas station right outside the gates stands to get hurt the most by my protest. I always drop at least $15 there every visit.

People are never happy. They worry and bitch and complain about things and then someone presents them with the perfect solution and a sweetheart deal like this and they're like, "Uhhh. I didn't think it would cost anything. You're rich, you pay for it." WTF?

</rant>*** This post was edited by Emiroo 11/6/2007 4:18:27 PM ***

And almost 8 months of the year, they're hardly using any water. Too bad they can't install a system that allows them to shut off a valve when the park season's over-- then Christmas Lake Village can fend for themselves until next May.