We can understand why the audience booed. When one member of the Ferriday Town Council made a motion to increase aldermens’ salaries $100 per meeting, beginning with the next term, several of the irate taxpayers present at Tuesday’s meeting were quite verbal with their displeasure.

And, thankfully, the motion died for lack of a second.

It’s appalling to Ferriday residents, and to those of us watching the community, that any members of the council would even consider discussing the pay raise issue in the midst of the town’s ongoing water woes.

When more than 4,000 residents on the town’s water system are pushing nearly 30 days without clean, safe drinking water, a pay raise for public officials is the least of taxpayers’ concerns.

What Ferriday residents want – and what they deserve – is clean, safe water for drinking and bathing, and a sense of confidence in the town’s leaders to guarantee that basic of civilized life.

Instead, the town’s leadership has admitted to knowing about the ongoing water saga and has fallen back on the standby excuse of a lack of money in explaining how the water system came to be in such deplorable condition that the proper functioning of the town’s entire system is dependent on a switch tied back with a piece of cord.

And they use that same excuse for allowing the disgrace to continue.

Residents don’t want to hear about possible pay raises for elected leaders who can’t manage the town’s financial resources well enough to provide its residents the basic services they deserve.

It’s absurd.

And it’s insulting to the residents of Ferriday.