The City Council is right to take a look at a possible private-public partnership for operating and maintaining the city’s sewer system.
Councilmen raised concerns about obliging itself to a private company if it goes out for requests for proposals, although the arguments of a couple of the councilmen seemed to show their decision is already made — opposition to “privatization” at any level.
Jim Gourley said he thought that this sent the wrong message to city employees, but he did agree to table the subject until city staff could come back with something that somehow more explicitly says the request for proposals will not obligate the city to contract with a private partner.
If finding a cheaper or more efficient way to provide a service to the citizens of Sweet Home sends the wrong message to the employees, perhaps Sweet Home should send a message to at least this councilman: We want you to hold down our rates as much as possible. We know we face higher rates in the future to repair our sewer system, but please minimize those increases.
Employees work to provide a service that people want or are required by state law to buy. The service does not exist to provide them jobs, no matter how good they are. That doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate them. All it means is that their jobs exist to meet the demands of the ratepayers.
We want the best service we can get for our rates.
We need to check this idea out. It may result in equal or better service at the same price. If it does not, and employees raised a couple of reasons why it may not, then we should stick with what we’ve got.
It doesn’t hurt to shop around. We all do that all the time — which is why all you Wal-Mart haters eventually find yourselves buying stuff at Wal-Mart anyway.
City staff and the City Council are on the right track with this process. They have made the right decision in not even looking at selling the utility outright.
Our sewer service is a monopoly. Logistically, it will probably always be a monopoly, working outside of market competition, which drives down prices and improves services and goods.
Given that we’re stuck with a monopoly, it’s nice to have at least a little tiny bit of control over that monopoly via our City Council.
City employees have shared some reasons why the city may not want a private partner. In one example, we learned that the city’s utility operators help with much more than running the sewer and water plants. They assist with parades and bagging sand during floods. They helped clear roads during a tough storm a couple years back.
The council should soberly consider the possibilities offered by a private partnership and weigh that against what the city already has. All councilmen should remain open to the idea until more information is available.
Kudos go to Mike Adams for doing exactly what the City Council asked of him in the first place and bringing this idea to this point, to Mayor Craig Fentiman for his open mind and Deb Davis for speaking for the ratepayers of Sweet Home.