When all is said and done, this Wright Patman Regional Water Supply Agency will be a done deal without much of anything said about it -- publicly. It doesn't have to be that way, but it's up to the public to speak up.
In four days, the city councils of 12 small cities in Bowie, Red River and Cass counties will act on a resolution to form this agency. They will do it, although at the time this column was written (just before midnight Thursday [April 15]), not one city official had a copy of the resolution. The Austin attorney [David Tuckfield, Vinson & Elkins, Enron Attorneys -- maybe he'll get fired pretty soon?] putting it together was still drafting it. Talk about your informed decision-making.
All any public official involved in this will say is that it looks like a good way to ensure that the small cities can have a source of water at a reasonable cost. That seems like good stewardship of city financial resources. But public officials are not talking about the potential costs of setting an agency, or what the administrative or capital improvement costs might be if they were to create their own water system.
Right now the cities get their water from Texarkana Water Utilities. Seven of the 12 looking to form the new agency are engaged in a lawsuit against TWU [Texarkana Water Utilities] and the city of Texarkana, Texas, that claims they have been overcharged for water. Officials in these seven cities won't talk about this effort, or an earlier one, because they are hiding behind a judicial gag order on the parties to the lawsuit. They claim some of the issues raised in the lawsuit are the same issues involved in the formation of this agency. The visiting judge hearing the case [District Judge Jimmy White of Mount Pleasant], in an effort to avoid a change of venue because of pretrial publicity, has endorsed their silence. But he doesn't pay his water bill here.
[COMMENT: Ultimately the only way that people will be forced to conserve water is by raising their water rates, but I digress. RS]
The officials in the other five cities have been mum about what their obligations might be as partners in the new water agency, saying they haven't seen the resolution. They won't talk about a resolution they aren't familiar with, but they will be comfortable enough to vote on it.
[COMMENT: Pardon my cynicism, but isn't that just about the biggest bunch of bullshit you ever heard in your life? These miserable little cities are being led like lambs to the slaughter by the spiteful, revengeful Wake Villainy Comrade Chairman Muddlestonvic. He got kicked off both Region D and the SeRBiA, and he's had a chip on his shoulder ever since. Even if he succeeds in forming this pitiful water agency, named after the honorable Wright Patman (who was a family friend of mine, and who would turn over in his grave if he knew that Muddlestonvic had so besmirched his good name), he cannot go so far as to construct the Marvin Nichols Reservoir behind the backs of those "superior government agencies" whose support he would have to obtain. Let the Comrade Chairman run his little bureaucratic water agency, as long as he keeps his greedy fingers off the Sulphur River Bottomland. And there are a couple of others who are sweating tonight and who should beware as well. Tomorrow is a new day in SeRBiA! Hail The Revolution! Read on. RS]
Perhaps they have some inside information from discussions with the officials of the other five cities. Apparently the gag order doesn't extend to discussions with other city officials who want to jump on this water wagon. Lest anyone thinks I'm just taking these officials of the small cities to task, let me go on the record to say I suspect there is a good deal more the intransigent officials of Texarkana, Texas, and TWU might have done to make the lawsuit go away.
I'm guessing this whole water controversy is polluted with backroom power brokering and destructive levels of testosterone-driven politics. You don't have to look as deep as the Sulphur River during a drought to see that this is about who's going to control a resource that will become ever more precious and political as years go by.
I realize it is hard for the average person to get jazzed by this issue. The subject is arcane, and none of us has to worry right now about where our next flush will come from. Too, it's hard to decide whether a matter of public business is worth our interest when we have so few details abut it. Thgat should be troubling to the people represented by the officials of these 12 cities. If you let them swim in silence on this one, don't come complaining later when you're swamped by what it costs. You'll be the one responsible for the erosion of your public trust.
Go to your council meetings on Thursday [April 22]. Ask some questions. Demand some answers. Better do it, or they'll think you don't give a dam.
[COMMENT: Amen! But ... oh no!, this is SeRBiA! Officials are under "gag orders" not to talk to common folks. Last time they tried this, no question from the public was answered at these "concurrent ratification meetings"; and then the city officials tried to sneak out the back doors of various courthouses in order to avoid having to answer questions. Did the Comrade Chairman order them to do this? Or are they so afraid of their own shadows, they simply fled, disgracefully unobserved? It makes one wonder. I thought that I lived in free America, not secretive SeRBiA. RS]