Sunday, September 07, 2008

Water District Conspiracy?  Berding asks for permission from Rager

Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

In this email exchange below, Councilmember Jeff Berding asks David Rager for permission before sending an email to Tom West concerning issues surrounding the secretive plans to move towards a “Water Disctrict,” that some feel could be the first step towards privatizing water in Cincinnati.  It’s noteworthy how Berding needs Rager’s permission to send an email.  Also, it’s noteworthy that Berding has apparently edited Rager’s response.  Why wasn’t Rager’s unedited response included in my records request?

==
From: Berding, Jeffrey [mailto:Jeffrey.Berding@bengals.nfl.net]
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 1:54 PM
To: Rager, David
Subject: RE: AFSCME - help?

Thank you David, this extensive update is very helpful information. I will ask Tom West if he would like to meet with you.

I have drafted the proposed email to Tom below, attaching your comments (see below). I have shortened your response. Let me know if you are OK, or suggest further modifiications.

Thanks again,

Jeff

Jeff Berding

(513)455-8352

(513)621-3570 (fax)

PROPOSED
Tom, as indicated, I have followed up with David Rager with some of your concerns regarding the study and conversion process involving AFSCME, as well as the union’s involvement in this process. He has responded with the information and update you see below. He is willing to meet with you to discuss your concerns. Please let me know if you are willing. Thanks much,

Jeff

==
From: Rager, David [mailto:David.Rager@gcww.cincinnati-oh.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 10:43 AM
To: Berding, Jeffrey
Subject: RE: AFSCME - help?

Jeff:

No one to my knowledge in management has said that AFSCME supports transitioning the Water Works to a water district.  In fact the City Manager and I have been very careful to say that all we are talking about here is conducting a study to determine if it is a good idea or not.  We don’t know if we support it until we get all the facts on the table through the study.  When Milton announced to Council that he was going to conduct the study, I called or met with the various union leadership in early October.  I stressed that this was just a study.  None of the union leadership stated that they didn’t support the study.  They did express reservations about the district and wanted more information.  When I have been asked if the union supports the district, I responded that they understandably have questions and concerns, but have not expressed to me objections to conducting the study.

After Milton announced his intent to conduct the study, I organized employee briefing sessions in October and early November.  About 450 of the 600 employees at GCWW voluntarily attended one of the sessions.  All of the union officials attend on or more of the sessions.  I explained to the employees that the City Manager had announced plans to do a study and I explained to them what a Water District is under Ohio law.  I also gave them examples of water districts around the U.S.  In each session we had the employees work as groups to develop questions and concerns that they had.  From all the sessions the employees developed around 580 questions.  Many of them require legal research; some can’t be answered until the study process develops some conclusions; but as we get answers we have been communicating those back to all employees.  I should also note that about 95% of the 600 Water Works employees are union employees.  So a meeting of 450 employees is going to be nearly all union employees.

HOW THE STUDY HAS BEEN ORGANIZED

The study groups have been organized into two committees.  The first is the Water District Study Group (WDSG) which is made up of only citizens.  I am staffing the committee with Lynn Marmer, from Kroger as chair.  I have several other GCWW employees and outside legal council assisting with preparing information for the committee.  Milton and I felt that this committee needed to be just citizens so the community at large would not feel that the deck was stacked or manipulated by city employees or management to drive the committee to a specific recommendation.  It is perfectly feasible that this citizen committee will come back and say; moving to a district is not a good idea for the community.  The other members of the citizen committee are:

Andrew Kolsar, Partner Thompson Hine, LLP

James Sumner, GE Group Environmental Programs, also Blue Ash councilmember

Mary Asbury, Executive Director, Legal Aid Society

Dr. Robert Clark, retired former head of research for U.S. EPA Water Division

Dan Radford, Union Labor Life Company, former official AFL-CIO

Wendell Young, former president NAACP

David Crowley, Cincinnati Council member

The charge of the citizen committee is to study the feasibility of transitioning the Water Works to a district, and if so recommending how it would be organized. (i.e. what would its boundaries be, how big would its board be, how would board members be selected, how would the board conduct business, etc.) Ultimately the committee will make its recommendations to the City Manager, who would then forward his recommendation to the City Council.  City Council would decide if they want to transition the water works to a district and if so must hold public hearings on a petition.  The petition is then submitted to the Court of Common pleas for approval.  The court must conduct public hearings as well before ruling on the petition.

At the WDSG’s meeting last week, they discussed the union leadership’s feelings of not being included in the process.  The issue was raised by Dan Radford but was a good discussion by all the members.  They didn’t come to a conclusion as to how specifically to include the union in their process, but agreed to consult with the City Manager.  Since the committee was appointed by the City Manager, they felt they needed to get his input.

The second committee I mentioned is an internal committee to the Water Works made up of Water Works employees.  The internal committee’s job is to figure out how the Water Works would function, if the citizen’s committee recommends transitioning the Water Works to a district.  The internal committee is focusing on the nuts and bolts of running a water utility.  They have a long list of areas to study.  For example, they have to figure out how we would get paychecks produced as a district, how we would buy supplies and materials, how would we have handle all the deeds and easements we have on parcels we own or have right of ways, and how much would it cost to do all of this.

The internal committee is structured with a small team of senior managers who are organizing the study process and have then broken it into sub committees focusing on various pieces. The sub committees have union and non union employees on them.  Next week the internal team is having a two day session with 100 Water Works employees, broken into groups, to get more input from employees on areas that need to be addressed.  Union and non union employees, including union leadership, will be in the two day sessions from all levels of the organization.  From the two day session more groups will be formed to study specific areas of operations.

Our communication plan with the employees has been to communicate what we know when we know it, but not to mislead employees with half information.  A special web site for GCWW employees has been created that they can access when they want to look at information that has been developed to that point.  All documents given to the citizen committee are posted for the employees to review.  As we develop answers to employee question they are also posted on this web site.  We also send out a weekly newsletter about the Water District study to all GCWW employees updating them on what has been happening and where they can get more information.  They are encouraged to email questions in so that answers to be distributed.

Last month we also initiated monthly meetings with all of the union leaders.  We have committed to continue to meet with the union and include them in the study process.  We will continue to reach out to them, but in case they don’t participate we have been incorporating AFSCME rank and file (as well as CODE, Teamsters, and Trades) into the process so that we are getting feedback from all levels of the organization.

If you have questions, please call or email me.  If you think it would help, I would also be more than willing to meet with Tom West.

Thanks

David

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? says:
07 Sep 2008  at  10:44 am | #

Would a knowledgeable person please explain the difference between a “Water District” and what we have now?

says:
07 Sep 2008  at  01:08 pm | #

The concept was originally floated by Dohoney, who said the “Water District” would be a regional approach to selling water to more municipalities in further-away Counties.  He thought this could make the City money.

But the fear has emerged that, as is so typical in Cincinnati, that corporate interests are turning this into a chance to turn a profit for them, too, through privatization.

The real question, in this strand, should be why Jeff Berding needs permission to send an email, and why he’s editing Rager’s comments.

says:
08 Sep 2008  at  12:58 pm | #

Dohoney is a puppet---Rager pulls the strings.

says:
08 Sep 2008  at  06:46 pm | #

Interim City Manager David Rager has made it a practice of using Water Works Funds to finance other City Department projects and services while performing his duties as the Water Works Director for the past eleven years. This practice is in direct violation of Article IV (Section 9) of the City Charter (See Attached).

Some examples of Water Works Funds being used to finance other City Departments are listed as follows:

1. The Water Works sometimes incorporates Cincinnati street rehabilitation projects into it’s own water main installation projects, thus using Water Works Funds to finance the City’s Department of Transportation and Engineering Street
Rehabilitation Program. This is a huge monetary misuse of Water Works Funds.



2. The funding, by the use of materials and labor, for the construction of outdoor structures in Eden Park for the City’s Parks Department.



3. The funding, by the use of materials and labor, for Streetscape Projects under the jurisdiction of the City’s Economic Development Department. The total cost was approximately $20,000.00.

It is imperative that someone investigate Mr. David Rager’s past practices of using Water Works Funds to finance other City Department projects and services.

says:
08 Sep 2008  at  07:07 pm | #

SEWAGE TREATMENT WASTEWATER DISCHARGE BEING OVERLOOKED
Greater Cincinnati Water Works director David Rager and Northern Kentucky Sanitation District No. 1 Sewage Treatment Plant officials have agreed to bring in a mediator to try to resolve a dispute over sewage treatment wastewater discharge into the Ohio River from the recently built Sanitation District No.1 Sewage Treatment Plant.  Mr. Rager says that this new sewage treatment wastewater discharge threatens drinking water being processed by the Greater Cincinnati Water Works. The drinking water being threatened by this sewage treatment wastewater is processed by the Greater Cincinnati Water Works and is supplied to Ohio residences of Cincinnati, the City of Mason, Hamilton County, Butler County, Clermont County, Warren county and Kentucky residences of Boone County. Mr. Rager contends that the discharge point for the recently built Sanitation District No. 1 Sewage Treatment Plant is dangerous because it discharges sewage treatment wastewater 16 miles upstream from the Greater Cincinnati Water Work’s intakes on the Ohio River.
Mr. Rager has entirely overlooked the threatening sewage treatment wastewater discharge into the Ohio River from the New Richmond, Ohio Sewage Treatment Pant. For the past eleven years the New Richmond, Ohio Sewage Treatment Pant has been discharging threatening sewage treatment wastewater only 11 miles upstream from the Greater Cincinnati Water Work’s intakes on the Ohio River.
The New Richmond, Ohio Sewage Treatment Plant was built circa1976. The New Richmond Sewage Treatment Plant had a design capacity back in 1976 of 1million gallons per day. The capacity of the newly built Northern Kentucky Sanitation District No. 1 Sewage Treatment Plant will be 4 million gallons per day. With housing construction growing by leaps and bounds in the New Richmond area, the sewage treatment demands facing the New Richmond sewage treatment plant will grow by leaps and bounds. The New Richmond Sewage Treatment Plant facilities will definitely expand in the future and therefore the threatening sewage treatment wastewater discharge into the Ohio River will also increase in the future.
Mr. Rager totally overlooked any potentially threatening sewage treatment wastewater discharge from the New Richmond, Ohio Sewage Treatment Plant when it first went on line in 1976. During the past eleven years, Mr. Rager has totally overlooked any threatening sewage treatment wastewater discharge from the New Richmond, Ohio Sewage Treatment Plant. As the New Richmond, Ohio Sewage Treatment Plant expands in the coming future, will the threatening sewage treatment wastewater discharge still be totally overlooked by Mr. Rager?

says:
08 Sep 2008  at  07:12 pm | #

Dave Rager, Cincinnati Water Works Director, tells the Enquirer that the effort by Northern Kentucky’s sewer authority to put a waste water treatment plant on the Ohio River 11 miles up stream from the intake where Cincinnati gets its drinking water would be like flushing your toilet where you get your drinking water. Well Mr. Rager does just that! The Cincinnati Water Works has a Pumping Station, located right across from its main intake in the Ohio River.  All restroom sewage from the Pumping Station goes directly untreated through a pipe to the Ohio River directly across from this intake.

says:
08 Sep 2008  at  09:34 pm | #

Friday, October 19, 2007
Water Works spinoff could make big splashRegional district idea would create dividend from utility
Business Courier of Cincinnati - by Dan Monk Senior Staff Reporter
Print Email Reprints RSS Feeds Add to Del.icio.us Digg This Comments
The city of Cincinnati could receive millions of dollars in annual dividends and improve expansion prospects for the Greater Cincinnati Water Works under a new proposal to spin off the city-owned utility into a regionally focused water district.

City Manager Milton Dohoney floated the idea in a recent memo to Mayor Mark Mallory and members of City Council. In an interview this week, Dohoney said the prospect of regular dividends is one reason the district format is being studied. He expects a team of outside consultants and city staffers to complete a feasibility study on the idea by next summer.

In Louisville, where Dohoney spent more than two decades in city government, the Louisville Water Co. spun off from the city 70 years ago. In the last two years, it has delivered more than $30 million in dividend checks to the city. Dohoney said Louisville typically used the extra cash for capital, as opposed to operating expenses.

“There’s been no secret of the financial struggles we’ve had,” said Dohoney. “It’s only prudent on our part to look at all possible options to generate more revenue. Is this something that does that? We don’t know yet. We’ll see what the feasibility study brings forth.”

Dohoney and Dave Rager, director of the Greater Cincinnati Water Works, declined to estimate how big a Cincinnati dividend could be. But they said one advantage of the district structure would be the end of an accounting restriction. Because it’s considered an enterprise fund of the city of Cincinnati, all excess revenue generated by Water Works must remain in that restricted fund.

“In theory, you could legally get a source of revenue from that (district) structure, whereas now you cannot,” Dohoney said.

Louisville Water’s annual report indicates it generated about $9 million more in total operating revenue than the $105 million recorded by Cincinnati’s Water Works in 2006.

The report also describes its 2006 dividend, totaling $14 million, as “60 percent of the company’s net income before distributions and contributions with certain adjustments and exclusions.” Greater Cincinnati Water Works reported net income before distributions of $11.9 million last year. Sixty percent of that would be $7.1 million.

Rager cautioned that Ohio law treats water districts differently than Kentucky, where lawmakers adopted language specific to Louisville’s organizational structure. And Dohoney stressed that the city isn’t looking to siphon cash out of its water utility.

“You still have to have your capital investments to make sure things are running well. This doesn’t change that at all,” said Dohoney. “We’re not talking about anything that would have a negative impact on service delivery.”

Water Works is in strong financial shape. Moody’s Investors Service upgraded its debt rating on the agency in April, from “Aa2” to “Aa1,” citing “healthy cash reserves” and strong prospects for “continued expansion of wholesale services” to suburban communities surrounding Cincinnati.

“Moody’s believes that the utility has planned conservatively and is financially well positioned to meet expected growth,” said the rating agency’s April 25 report.

Water Works is exploring the new district format as it prepares for a leadership change. Rager recently announced he plans to retire by year-end, taking advantage of an early-retirement incentive offered by Cincinnati City Council. However, Rager has long been a proponent of the water-district concept and might choose to stay with the city long enough to complete the feasibility study.

“He has until the end of the calendar year” to decide, Dohoney said.

For other Water Works employees, the district format would apparently mean little change. In an e-mail describing the concept, Rager told Water Works employees that they would still be covered by the same civil service and pension systems that govern their employment now. Union contracts also would remain intact.

“The water district is an idea that maintains GCWW as a public agency,” Rager wrote. “It is not a plan to turn GCWW over to a private company.”

But the change would let Water Works be more entrepreneurial, said Rager, who expects the district structure would extend water service to suburban communities in Butler County, Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana.

“If you’re an organization that has a regional focus, you can probably go farther out and provide water to a greater region,” said Rager, “not just in water supply but in other utility services.”

Water Works has been expanding its regional footprint for several years, with a 2003 agreement to provide up to 14.5 million gallons a day to Boone County and smaller contracts extending water service to parts of Warren, Butler and Clermont counties. Water Works now distributes 48 billion gallons of water a year through 3,000 miles of water mains to 235,000 residential and commercial accounts. Its laboratory facilities are increasingly being used for water testing on an outsourced basis. And in 2004, Rager struck a deal to provide billing services to more than 30,000 Butler County water customers.

“They’ve been a fantastic partner,” said Sue Vance, director of the Butler County Department of Environmental Services. Butler County will expand its Cincinnati contract in January, boosting its minimum daily purchase requirement to 4 million gallons. Vance isn’t sure what impact a new district format would have on its relationship with the Cincinnati utility.

Yet it still has plenty of capacity for expansion. Rager said the utility set a new record for daily usage in August, at the height of a summer drought, when it sent 236 million gallons of water through its pumps.

“That’s about 70 percent of our capacity,” he said.

says:
08 Sep 2008  at  09:51 pm | #

Revenues from city and county ‘Water bill Paying Customers” have always been used to finance the operating costs of the Cincinnati Water Works and to finance the construction costs of Cincinnati Water Work’s facilities and infrastructures.
The City of Cincinnati has contributed nothing.

The City of Cincinnati now wants to lease back to the Cincinnati Water Works the facilities and infrastructures that have already been paid for by the city and county “Water Bill Paying Customers”.

Are City Manager, Milton Dohoney and Water Works Director, David Rager both trying to scam the “Water Bill Paying Customers”?

says:
10 Sep 2008  at  08:54 pm | #

I feel that the Dean is not being sent all of the documents that he requested.
For such a lage staff of people involved, why so few documents?

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