Right before 9 a.m. Friday, the Facebook page for the village made it official: “FREDONIA’s BOIL WATER ORDER HAS BEEN LIFTED!” It may have been exciting news to share, but it is no cause for celebration.

Water is Fredonia’s major stain. What makes the situation even worse is that this is no longer just a community secret. It has become a notorious problem that is being noticed within the county, state and nation while wreaking havoc with admissions at the State University of New York at Fredonia.

Users have no choice but to complain to the current elected leaders about the problem, but they forget the history. Fredonia could have kept its system as a supplier — with the city of Dunkirk — in the north-county water district in the mid 2010s.

Stubborn trustees at the time thought they would be better off on their own. While the city of Dunkirk got a $20 million upgrade to its water department as part of a regional solution, the village’s archaic reservoir system kept aging as bandages kept being applied.

Once Carriage House left the region in 2015 — in part due to aloof village leadership — water revenues were never the same and the system began its path to a deficit.

Around 2017, another study was commissioned on water by the village. It used its own engineers in O’Brien & Gere — who had a vested interest in keeping Fredonia as its customer. That flawed study said if Fredonia joined the North County Water District, rates would triple. No other study has come close to that projection.

Bottom line is this: Fredonia’s pride led to these numerous water emergencies over the last five years. Village leaders, especially around 2010, could have been part of a solution by being a partner and supplier in the North County Water District.

Past trustees and mayors had no vision then — and current trustees are the ones left with the black eye.

This is the danger of home-rule government, even today. The village keeps hearing calls to hire more staff. Its budgeted revenues are consistently overstated. Now the municipality is going broke. And, for decades, the leadership has embraced undrinkable water that is inconvenient and hinders development efforts.

These careless actions of the past do not come down to decisions by outsiders. They were made right before our eyes here at home.