Are Pope and ALEC behind Asheville's water struggle?
There does seem to be a direct connection between Pope, ALEC, and Rep. Tim Moffitt:
Moffitt played coy in a July 22, 2112 Asheville Citizen-Times article in reference to an offensive ad paid for by Raleigh millionaire Art Pope against Jane Whilden in 2010. He said he only met Pope once and “did not ask for his help.” That didn’t stop Moffitt from taking $16,000 in direct Pope campaign contributions, a fact that should have been reported.
Already this year, a Pope-related PAC has spent $47,616.25 on Moffitt’s reelection campaign.(Checked July 2012).ALEC MEMBERSHIP
Moffitt is also affiliated with ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a very controversial group backed by corporate interests that writes model legislation for state lawmakers. Sourcewatch lists Moffitt as a member of ALEC’s International Relations Task Force and as an alternate on their Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force. He also attended ALEC’s 2011 annual meeting, along with the four other members of his water/sewage Study Committee. Google this group, and you can read all about them, for instance “The Big Money Behind State Laws,” New York Times, 2-13-12.
You can expect to see many more of these efforts to privatize water resources in the days to come, especially if the frackers decide to set up operations in our state.
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Are Pope and ALEC behind Asheville's water struggle?
Are Pope and ALEC behind Asheville's water struggle?
It's a good question. I guess the answer is "No." And you have made no logical connection whatsoever.
First, there's nothing wrong with Pope or ALEC.
Second, guilt by association is a logical fallacy.
Third, there is no effort by Rep. Moffitt or anyone else to "privatize" the water system. In fact, Moffitt is on record explicitly opposing any action that would lead to privatization (which, by the way, means selling an asset outright to a private company).
A legislative study committee has recommended that the General Assembly merge water systems in Asheville, Buncombe County and Henderson County under a regional government-sponsored independent authority. The committee also recommended allowing the City of Asheville to accomplish the merger on their own, but if they do not proceed in good faith toward a merger, the state legislature will step in to accomplish the merger.
http://www.ncleg.net/documentsites/committees/lrc/2012%20Committee%20Rep...
Guilt by association is a
Guilt by association is a logical fallacy in the abstract. But this is not in the abstract. Friends of Pope have done more collective damage to NC in the past decade than most people thought possible.
The GOP has raised lying to a high art form. Moffitt saying he's against privatization is like Paul Ryan saying he wants to save Medicare.
If this is really true:
Then please explain why this happened:
What, did they all just happen to be on vacation in New Orleans at the time?
As far as there being "nothing wrong with Pope and ALEC", that's a matter of opinion, Tim. And my opinion is driven by the knowledge that both have worked hard to erode support for public works and build support for the privatization of said functions.
As for ALEC in particular, if you think it's okay for lobbyists to have virtually unlimited access to lawmakers with little or no reporting requirements, then you apparently have a lot more faith in the "good intentions" of corporations than is healthy.
"In fact, Moffitt is on
"In fact, Moffitt is on record explicitly opposing any action that would lead to privatization (which, by the way, means selling an asset outright to a private company)."
Moffitt Campaign surrogate Tim Peck once again unintentionally tips the truth. All of Rep. Moffitt's statements that he opposes seeing the system privatized hinge on the assumption that people don't know the difference between 'privatization' and 'public-private partnerships (PPP)'.
Those of us who don't want to see the Asheville water system turned over to United Water, for example, or Macquarie Capital, for decades-long management contracts, refer to that as 'privatization'. Rep. Moffitt has never said that he would oppose a deal that mirrors the disastrous privatization scheme of Atlanta, for example, that ended in a costly and embarrassing disaster. The City of Atlanta kept ownership of the physical assets, but turned over every aspect of running the system to United Water, until rates had skyrocketed, outages had increased, and United Water was billing the City for more than their contract allowed. That 'partnership' collapsed, and THAT is the most prevalent model of privatization in use today, the PPP. Rep. Moffitt has never stated opposition to that level of surrendered public control.
The growing preference for that model in the privatization-promotion community, and the inter-changeability of the terms 'privatization' and 'PPP' was spelled out in some detail in the hearings of the PPP Committee co-chaired by Rep. Moffitt:
"Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs)Defined
• PPPs—a.k.a. privatization"
http://www.ncleg.net/DocumentSites/Committees/HSCPPP/Meeting%202%20-%201... (pg. 2)
He understands the distinction, yet pretends he doesn't. His assurances against privatizing Asheville's water system always boil down to promising that the assets won't be sold, but say nothing about the PPP model of privatization, WHICH DOESN"T INVOLVE SELLING THE ASSETS.
Mr. Peck's blurting confirms that the Moffitt campaign is well aware he is on thin ice with this shell game.
Further accidental
Further accidental revelations from Mr. Peck:
"1. 50% of Henderson County will be served by the merged water system."
http://mountainx.com/article/45177/Six-legal-boundaries-involved-only-on...
The only way that a "merged water system" based on the existing Asheville Water System could reach that many Henderson Co. residents is if the water system currently owned by the City of Hendersonville were to be seized as well. Rep. Chuck McGrady was forced to acknowledge this possibility by Rep. Patsy Keever during the debate on Moffitt's MSD bill in July. The entire region's water supply, not just Asheville's, is on the auction block.
Mostly No
I've read the report and done a fair amount of my own reading on the situation in Asheville.
It seems Asheville brought most of this upon itself by failure to properly maintain and upgrade its system, using most "profits" to subsidize the general fund for many years, and by using its system to strongarm neighbors.
Did they have the legal right to do all this? Probably so, but that is not the point. I find the whole thing quite similar to how Fayetteville treated its powers of annexation. Fayetteville pretty much ruined the ability for ALL NC municipalities to annex. Let's hope Asheville has not ruined local governments' control over their utilities.
What Fayetteville and Asheville have done is behave badly allowing our legislature to step in to "protect" us from them. They let these clowns in the door.
Of course "real" conservatives believe that the best government is that which is closest (local) to the people, but it is hard to pay off hundreds of city and county commissions, so Raleigh is apparently "close enough" for current "conservatives" in power.
Legislative summary was one-sided
At least it sounds like you read the same report I did, which was heavy with accusations that Asheville used rate increases to coerce unincorporated areas to allow themselves to be annexed.
While the rate increases themselves are a matter of public record, the motivations ascribed to Asheville in this report are mostly speculative. The report begins by positing that since the General Assembly has put the kibosh on involuntary annexations, Asheville will be forced to resort to more water rate increases to grab territory. That's not the way it's written, but that's what the authors are trying to say.
What's not said in this report is that private companies like AquaNC and Aqua America have been sniffing around for water they can buy and resell at a much higher rate, and the merger will make that a hell of a lot easier.
I read the report with a
I read the report with a grain of salt, but certain facts are not in dispute.
I do agree that the water situation is VERY much tied to annexation. I just look at is more of a good thing than perhaps the report's authors do. Certainly, one part of the equation there and other places in the state is that people want to live adjacent to a municipality but "in the county" and thus enjoy most of the benefits of living "in" Asheville, etc but not having to pay city property taxes. IF they get/got water, they gripe about the high out-of-town rate. In many cases though (and I think with Asheville) is that if someone developing in an unincorporated area adjacent to a city wants the city's water, they must apply for annexation. This is only fair as city dwellers should not be subsidizing the people building McMansions on the hill just outside of town.
The implications of the Sullivan act do seem to make Asheville's situation even trickier.
As far as the privatization of water systems goes, what is currently happening is companies buying up PRIVATE systems that were set up long ago by developers before we had anything like current drinking water regulations. There seems to be little movement towards the privatization of ownership of public systems. It sounds like there needs to be some regulatory reform in regards to the consolidation of ownership of the private systems. I don't see a big threat of the private companies getting their hands on the public systems.
There can be a significant benefit to private OPERATION of public systems as their can be significant cost savings when a private entity can spread its operations resources over multiple and usually smaller public systems. Of course, you can get into a bad contract with a private firm, but that's what diligence and the bidding process are for.
Disputes
Many facts about the Asheville water system are continually in dispute, primarily by people who want to shift control of the resource out of the City's hands. For example, one of the central reasons cited by Rep. Moffitt for starting all this was that the City raised water rates 20% in 2011. This 'fact' sounds alarming as far as it goes, until you hear what really happened: the rate increase was ONLY on commercial users, ONLY on the largest commercial users, and then ONLY on the water used over a certain high threshold. Absolutely nobody's water bill went up 20%. In fact, one of the largest water users in the City, the Grove Park Inn, responded to the rate increase by instituting a conservation and reclamation program which will end up saving them money as they use less water. They likely wouldn't have done that on their own without some prodding.
That's how it's supposed to work, and it was the responsible thing to do, given that the system needed more maintenance money, and they are uniquely barred from charging differential rates to non-City customers. It was a choice between raising rates on ALL users, including residents, or adjusting the residential/commercial rate structure to be more in line with other NC cities. But the folks pushing to strip Asheville of it's water will never acknowledge that sort of thing, choosing instead to use scare tactics in order to rouse support for something draconian.
In reality, this is about putting the water into the hands of people who think of it as a commodity to be milked for financial gain, not a shared resource to be treated in a responsible manner. Whether it's through privatization, which is a real threat, or simply through requiring City users to pay more in order to subsidize expansion of the system to the hinterlands of speculative development across two counties. As Tim Moffitt himself said to me in an unguarded moment, "Barry, what do you have against profit?"
It's all about profit for a chosen few.
www.ashevillewater.blogspot.com
Our water-our right
Another aspect to consider here concerns long term weather patterns. Are we more likely in the future to experience higher heat and greater chance of drought? After this summer I think the answer is 'Yes'. Water will only become a more and more valuable commodity in the future and corporate America knows it. They are grabbing control of water across the US. And its not for our benefit. The worst thing in the world to happen to us would be to lose control of our water. Unlike gasoline, you cannot elect to use less if the cost goes too high. Water is a life sustaining necessity and the day that is truned over to corporate greed is the day they start choking you and your grandkids into the muck.
Vote no on the referendum to sell on November 6 and tell Raleigh to fix its own problems before it presumes to tell us how to live.