Citizen Comments

Decided to listen to citizen and council comments from last night's city council meeting. Up first, Chuck Petrocki spoke on the privatization of Atlanta GA and Urbana IL's water supplies. Atlanta's experience was an increase in unreliability of water service, with an increase in dirty water and water outages. Urbana's privately locally owned water system sold out to American Water and almost immediately saw an increase in boil water orders. Urbana's mayor even traveled to Germany to American Water's headquarters to ask about re-purchasing the water system. He was refused,the company saying they were willing to sell the system by not to a municipality as that would set a bad precedent. His comments ended with a lng round of applause from the audience.

Next up, Rich Whitney with an invitation. Waddya bet he invites the mayor and council to the presentation of Flow Thursday night? Yep,I'm right.

Berardino Baratt next, advocating the council think long term, rather than short term, which in his case means looking at alternative energy sources. He also supports both a sales tax and property tax increase in the short term.

Up now Treesong, who also doesn't want the water system privatized and advocates putting the water system eventually in a public trust.

Now, Hugh Williams, wants to speak against the privatization of the water, laying blame for the fiscal problems of the city partially on the tax increase for Saluki Way, along with a couple of digs at the mayor's traveling.

And here's Jane Adams, who requests the mayor come to the next city council meeting with documents showing due diligence has been done regarding the legal ramifications selling C'dales system to a private system, as well as a throughout assessment of the value of the system by a third party before it is sold. She adds that she has heard from others that the quoted $42 million figure is a "fire sale" price for this asset.

Now, Bill Weinhoffer who is speaking for the city plumber and pipefitters union which is also concerned about the sale. His speach is pretty short.

Curt Wilson is opposed to the privatization but is more concerned about climate change, at from his comments.

Up now, Yolanda Kaminski, who contacted the Food and Water Watch in Washington DC and asked for info to be sent to her to pass along to the council. She made copies for the council which tey take and will distribute.

Finally, Rafal Kos has one question: where is the company that is interested in buying the water system so that it can answer questions about the purchase.

The mayor then comments that there is no proposal on the agenda for this meeting or the next to vote on the privatization and that the only thing on the next meeting's agenda is a discussion of the property tax level. He then says that to call the privatization a proposal is an overstatement, as that misrepresents the fact that it is one of six options that have been made available to the council and public. He also comments that the city has been approached by several companies over the years about buying the city's water, but there are no current discussion.

Chris Wissmann then comments that a lot of the discussion misses the point, that the precipitating factor is runaway pension inflation, without which the city wouldn't have the financial difficulties it finds itself in. It's not enough to oppose water privatization, he adds so "let's not form a new party of no" or even" float vague exhortations" to look for other solutions to the problem, we need some real specifics from those who came out tonight regarding what tax packages you will accept. Long term the city needs real pension reform. Taxes can only be raised so much. He ends by commenting that pensions need to be restructured in such a way that the people who have earned them get them while keeping them affordable for the city.