Get on your phone Commissioners say no to private utilities
By CHARLIE WHITEHEAD, ckwhitehead@naplesnews.com
Monday, August 8, 2005
Lee County is saying thanks but no thanks to four different private utilities looking to hand over their plants to county control, at least for now.
Commissioners said this week that Utilities Director Rick Diaz and County Attorney David Owen can bring them formal offers from the utility owners. The only thing they're buying right now, though, they said, is Diaz and Owen's advice not to make the deals.
That's a reversal from the county's mindset of the late 1990s, when the county bought a handful of private utilities, including Gulf Utilities in San Carlos Park. Commissioners were stressing regional drinking water and central sewage treatment as more environmentally friendly than a collection of smaller private utilities, but the effort ran into scandal in 2000 when auditors claimed prices paid by the county were inflated by third-party brokers and that the county wasn't properly managing the contracts.
Investigations by local and federal law enforcement produced no charges, though three county department heads were sent packing. Commissioners also abandoned a privatization effort that allowed private companies to operate county-owned utilities, even suing the former operator for supposedly neglecting the system to the point it needed millions of dollars in work.
Commissioner Ray Judah said his philosophy of eliminating smaller operators in favor of a central system hasn't changed.
"At this point in time there's a definite need to use the utmost prudence and assure that if we do buy it, it's at the most favorable rate," he said. "I believe in due time we will see that."
Judah noted each of four utilities the small Tamiami Village and Forest utilities and the larger North Fort Myers Utilities and the Florida Governmental Utility Authority's Lehigh Acres system are facing various stages of difficulty.
County reports indicate the Lehigh plant will process almost 2.4 million gallons of sewage daily this year in a plant designed for 2.5 million. The North Fort Myers utility will process 1.95 million gallons daily at a plant designed for 2 million.
The county is considering rejoining the Florida Governmental Utility Authority, an agency that exists to purchase private utilities and act as holding company until a government utility takes over. The FGUA is currently running the Lehigh Acres utility.
"They're facing the same dilemma that anybody else would be because of the growth in Lehigh," said county Public Works Director Jim Lavender. "Everybody knows it's just a ticking time bomb."
Growth continues in areas not served by central water and sewer, Lavender said, and the county continues to lead Florida and the country in the number of septic tank permits issued.
"That's not what we want," Lavender said. "Hopefully nobody will become ill, but you can't continue to put your septic tank and your well on the same lot forever."
One of the problems with taking over the utilities is county employees are still cleaning up problems from when the previous purchases were made and operations were taken back in-house, Lavender said.
"With the mess we inherited we're just starting to get our heads above water," he said. "We only have so much capacity to do things, and that's the reality from my point of view. It takes horsepower and it takes capacity and it takes people."
Commissioner Tammy Hall was elected in 2004, so she missed the 2000 utilities scandal. She said the utility owners might not be offering the right deals right now, but the county has to look realistically at a future that includes continued rapid growth in areas with troubled utilities.
"We are getting growth in areas where utilities private utilities aren't ready for it yet," she said. "We have to sit back and take a realistic look at the future. Lee County's No. 1 in septic tanks right now and we have to do something."
Monday, August 8, 2005
Lee County is saying thanks but no thanks to four different private utilities looking to hand over their plants to county control, at least for now.
Commissioners said this week that Utilities Director Rick Diaz and County Attorney David Owen can bring them formal offers from the utility owners. The only thing they're buying right now, though, they said, is Diaz and Owen's advice not to make the deals.
That's a reversal from the county's mindset of the late 1990s, when the county bought a handful of private utilities, including Gulf Utilities in San Carlos Park. Commissioners were stressing regional drinking water and central sewage treatment as more environmentally friendly than a collection of smaller private utilities, but the effort ran into scandal in 2000 when auditors claimed prices paid by the county were inflated by third-party brokers and that the county wasn't properly managing the contracts.
Investigations by local and federal law enforcement produced no charges, though three county department heads were sent packing. Commissioners also abandoned a privatization effort that allowed private companies to operate county-owned utilities, even suing the former operator for supposedly neglecting the system to the point it needed millions of dollars in work.
Commissioner Ray Judah said his philosophy of eliminating smaller operators in favor of a central system hasn't changed.
"At this point in time there's a definite need to use the utmost prudence and assure that if we do buy it, it's at the most favorable rate," he said. "I believe in due time we will see that."
Judah noted each of four utilities the small Tamiami Village and Forest utilities and the larger North Fort Myers Utilities and the Florida Governmental Utility Authority's Lehigh Acres system are facing various stages of difficulty.
County reports indicate the Lehigh plant will process almost 2.4 million gallons of sewage daily this year in a plant designed for 2.5 million. The North Fort Myers utility will process 1.95 million gallons daily at a plant designed for 2 million.
The county is considering rejoining the Florida Governmental Utility Authority, an agency that exists to purchase private utilities and act as holding company until a government utility takes over. The FGUA is currently running the Lehigh Acres utility.
"They're facing the same dilemma that anybody else would be because of the growth in Lehigh," said county Public Works Director Jim Lavender. "Everybody knows it's just a ticking time bomb."
Growth continues in areas not served by central water and sewer, Lavender said, and the county continues to lead Florida and the country in the number of septic tank permits issued.
"That's not what we want," Lavender said. "Hopefully nobody will become ill, but you can't continue to put your septic tank and your well on the same lot forever."
One of the problems with taking over the utilities is county employees are still cleaning up problems from when the previous purchases were made and operations were taken back in-house, Lavender said.
"With the mess we inherited we're just starting to get our heads above water," he said. "We only have so much capacity to do things, and that's the reality from my point of view. It takes horsepower and it takes capacity and it takes people."
Commissioner Tammy Hall was elected in 2004, so she missed the 2000 utilities scandal. She said the utility owners might not be offering the right deals right now, but the county has to look realistically at a future that includes continued rapid growth in areas with troubled utilities.
"We are getting growth in areas where utilities private utilities aren't ready for it yet," she said. "We have to sit back and take a realistic look at the future. Lee County's No. 1 in septic tanks right now and we have to do something."
posted by Editor Facts & Myths @ 3:26 PM
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