The good ... and the Bad

I see in the News-Gazette that Champaign and Urbana, along with Peoria and Pekin, are exploring the possibility of buying Illinois American Water Company's assets in their communities.

Personally, I see this as a good idea. And a bad idea. And what could be a very wrong-headed idea.

In my mind, it's a good idea because with the right kind of local leadership, there's no way local control could be as bad as the service we've been receiving from a German company which doesn't care a whole lot about anything about Champaign-Urbana but how much money it can make.

Frankly, since the company was acquired and sold again over the last decade or so, service and quality has consistently declined. I remember some time ago (a looooooong time ago) CU water was judged in some kind of competition as the best-tasting in the state. Either they haven't been judging area water lately or CU's water has declined in quality. Given the amount of sediment and other solid and semi-solid stuff coming out of my faucets in the past few years, I judge it's the later. The quality's declined.

If local control/ownership can solve that problem. I'm all for it.

But it also likely is a bad idea. I suspect that since the water system has been foreign-controlled over the last few years, investment, maintenance and upgrades have been held to a minimum. The quality of water and service attests to that. We went a lot of years in CU without boil orders before they started popping up in the past few years.

Given that, municipal ownership likely would mean a huge investment in upkeep, maintenance and in upgrades that are much needed but have not been performed in the last few years for economic reasons.

That's likely to make the purchase cost-prohibitive.

And finally, the purchase could be wrong-headed.

If the cities are looking for the water system to turn a profit then they're getting into the venture for the wrong reasons. It is not a municipalities' mission to be a profit-making entity. It's a municipalities' business to provide services. The police department does not attempt to turn a profit on tickets, nor on parking meters. Believe it or not. The bus system doesn't attempt to make a profit on its service, just pay for the service, maintenance and salaries. And buy new buses when necessary. (Really.)

It'd be nice if the water system could pay for itself, including paying for maintenance and upgrades. Looking for profits? Thank you, no. That amounts to gouging residents. Gouging taxpayers. Unnecessary taxation. A government is not and should not be a profit-making enterprise, because any profit would come at the expense of its residents. Its taxpayers. Me.

I hope the cities look seriously at the purchase. But I also hope they go into it realistically.

And so it goes.