The City of Asheville can’t run its water system, and it needs special state laws to make sure it won’t. I know this because I’ve been told that anybody who doesn’t think so is either stupid or evil. Now, consider the Town of Tryon. It runs both a water and sewage system. It had to raise water rates 1% this year. It is expected that sewage rates will increase as well, since they are set at 150% of water rates. Now, it could be that a media bias is searching for muck, but the Tryon Daily Bulletin today published an article headlined, “Tryon Sewage Woes Continue.” It told about sewage backing up in a lady’s yard. The town has applied for a $600,000 grant to remediate the situation. Furthermore, it seems the town keeps finding people using septic systems that have been paying for municipal sewer service for years. The state only requires that these customers be reimbursed for two years of erroneous payments, but Tryon has been more generous.