Editor:
Last week, the Sweet Home City Council voted to proceed with an agreement with OMI to manage the city’s water and sewer treatment plants.
This agreement, for a 10-year period, will be extremely important to the city. I want to express a concern I have with this plan.
The vote was 4-3 in favor. I think we have an exceptional City Council. All the members are well-qualified and deserve to be on the council, and each member has given the subject a lot of thought.
The problem I have is simply that for such an important move for the city, the vote was too close. On a matter of such weight as this, a 4-3 vote is simply too close.
I have nothing to say about the proposal itself. I know next to nothing about it, but I am uncomfortable with such a close vote. If the proposal is such a great idea, the vote should have been near unanimous. A single councilor who voted in favor of could have rejected the motion by voting against it.
I’d like to see the council members meet again in a closed, informal session to see if they can get greater unanimity before proceeding. Some people will say the vote as it stands is absolutely final; we can’t pause for any reason; we’ll get sued; etc. But I would think that OMI would also like to see more enthusiastic support from the council.
I don’t think any of us are particularly good at forecasting 10 years in advance, so we need to be as sure as possible before proceeding.
Al Culver
Sweet Home