Commentary: We should support Mesa Water’s study to save ratepayers money

Any elected official, specifically for a special district, has a fiduciary responsibility to constantly and prudently evaluate how he can save ratepayers money.

On that note, I support the Mesa Water District’s championing and funding of a study to consider consolidation with the Costa Mesa Sanitary District in an unbiased, logical preliminary study.

What took them so long?

As a former sanitary district board member, I formally requested this be studied in 2011. I was not the first to ask this reasonable question. Later in 2011, the Orange County Grand Jury agreed, announcing its report with a headline “Let there be light: Dragging special districts from the shadows.”

James Ferryman and Art Perry have served on the Costa Mesa Sanitary District for more than two decades each. Rather than pursue a fiduciary responsibility with their proverbial hair on fire and conclude this study was necessary, they have chosen to stall in an election-year tactic.

What was the rush when Ferryman and Perry voted themselves a pay increase? Or voted in favor of the new sanitary district headquarters, now nicknamed the “Poop Palace”?

Didn’t they learn anything from the regrettable path of Newport Beach with its lavish “Taj Mahal” civic center and city hall?

With this new headquarters, the sanitary district hasn’t considered how it can use Mesa Water’s facilitates to save ratepayers money. If they don’t need the Poop Palace, does Costa Mesa really need two boards, two general managers? Do we need the current level of reserves for trash, sewer and water agencies? Just how much could consolidation save ratepayers?

These important questions are to soon be answered by Mesa Water’s feasibility study, yet were met with disdain by the sanitary district board.

But hey, what’s the rush? The November elections cannot come soon enough.

--

JIM FITZPATRICK is a Costa Mesa resident and former director of the Costa Mesa Sanitary District.