So, this whole water issue is irksome. For so many reasons . . .
I empathize with the people who say that the Mayor and Common Council haven’t done enough, haven’t been paying close enough attention and failed the public.
So I went back to try to figure out what we could have done better . . .
The first thing I did was went to Legistar and did a search for “water utility” to find out what decisions we had made since February 2005. We apparently made 146 decisions that included the words “water utility”.
Many of these decisions are items involving extending water services into the ever expanding edges of Madison for all the new development. Among our routine items I found this interesting item, authorizing the mayor and city clerk to enter into a contract with the UW to perform drinking water research. However, we didn’t have them report back to us, we had them report back to the Board of Water Commissioners instead of the whole City Council. Therefore, Ald. Cnare would be the only alderperson to get this report. Others of us get the federally required annual water quality report, page 2 page 3 and page 4 that they mail to all water utility customers.
Additionally, the Water Utility it has its own Board of Water Commissioners, a quasi-independent oversight board set up by state statute. State statute says that the board of commissioners “shall be responsible for the entire management of and shall supervise the operation of the utility.” The governing body, in this case the City Council, “shall exercise general control and supervision of the commission by enacting ordinances governing the commission’s operation”.
So, we appoint the commissioners and pass ordinances governing the commission’s operation, the commission is responsible for the management and supervision of the utility. Additionally, the Common Council passes the Water Utility operating budget ($0 city property tax dollars) and capital budget. Here’s their salary detail, minor objects and capital assets.
It’s always a balance, how do you get the information you need to know to make good decisions, and when do you start micromanaging? When do you insist on time-consuming reports from staff and when do you trust the staff to do their jobs? It gets even trickier when the state gives away your responsibility/ right to make decisions. And the mayor manages the staff. And the voters hold us responsible.
More to come . . .
