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LIGHTNING EDITORIAL: Power politics poisons the well

Henderson County’s governance by ultimatum continued in stunning fashion last week with Commissioner Bill Lapsley’s prosecution by PowerPoint of the city water system and its owner, the city of Hendersonville.


Lapsley took the floor for a one-sided presentation on why Hendersonville’s rates and capital expenses must now be approved by a body of political appointees in Raleigh. Never mind that Hendersonville would become the first municipality to come under the thumb of the unelected utility regulators, never mind that Hendersonville has gone out of its way to cooperate with the Board of Commissioners, and never mind that the county’s towns and its business development leaders have a good relationship with the city.
This unnecessary and harmful water war is another example of the commissioners’ first impulse to use a stick rather than a carrot. If Mills River gripes about a $120,000 a year contract for sheriff’s patrols, see how they like $750,000 a year (forcing a 6.76 cent property tax increase in the town). If Fletcher asks for help building a library, lecture the town’s leaders on how much they’ve taken of the county’s share of state sales tax revenue — and then adopt an official policy barring funding of new libraries in cities. (Good thing the main library is grandfathered in.) If the Henderson County School Board makes a legal vote choosing a Hendersonville High School construction plan the commissioners oppose, demand that the School Board members reverse the vote if they want to see any work done on HHS in their lifetime. If Hendersonville City Council members express doubt about the new-school option, demand that the City Council members shut up and toe the line, too, unless they want to see the county drop HHS plans altogether or, unless, in the alternative, with the help of state Rep. Chuck McGrady, they want to see the property de-annexed and put under the county’s control.
On and on it goes.
It’s dismaying to watch the blowup of diplomacy just three years after the celebratory announcement by the county commissioners, the city council, Wingate University, Blue Ridge Community College and Pardee Hospital to form the unprecedented partnership that produced the $30 million Health Sciences Center.
Lapsley’s one-sided prosecution might have been OK if, as in a real trial, he had then taken his seat and allowed the accused to present a defense. It didn’t happen. The commissioners gave the city no opportunity to rebut the charges. A civil engineer who has a lifetime of knowledge about all things utility, Lapsley went straight to option B — fulltime oversight of the city water system by the Utilities Commission — after Mayor Barbara Volk and the City Council refused his demand that the city voluntarily cede its water system to a countywide authority. We’re now headed for weeks of uncertainty in the North Carolina Legislature, potentially a long and expensive legal fight and political repercussions that could damage city-county relations for years to come.

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Hendersonville’s water system, the 11th largest municipal system in the state, has 27,400 customers — 75 percent of them outside the city limits. Because those ratepayers aren’t city voters, they have no means of redress if they have problems with water service or rates, Lapsley and McGrady say. Their solution is to put Hendersonville under the control of the utilities commission.
Lapsley ignored the down-side of this unprecedented arrangement. The city might not be able to react as quickly as it has in the past to the need for a water line for new industry (Tri-Hishtil and Bold Rock Hard Cider in Mills River) or for public water in response to a public health emergency (contaminated wells on Academy Road in Dana). If, as Lapsley envisions, the public utilities commission orders the city to charge uniform rates, the new schedule will balance a rate reduction for county users on the backs of city customers.
Lapsley provided a lot of evidence that had the benefit of being factual without being meaningful or relevant. It sounded startling that of 296 municipal water systems in North Carolina, only 10 have more than 50 percent of their users outside the city boundaries.
“This imbalance of the customer base,” Lapsley says, “has created a situation where the governing body of the city of Hendersonville is not answerable to the vast majority of the system’s customers.”
Except that’s not true. When Brightwater residents asked the city to give them a break on the longterm debt the subdivision incurred for city water lines (which replaced a failing neighborhood system), the City Council said yes. When the utilities department receives a complaint it doesn’t even ask whether the user is inside or outside the city, City Manager John Connet says.
As for the rate differential, the city has moved toward closing the gap. Statewide on average, city systems charge outside users 1.97 times the inside rate. The Hendersonville City Council has ratcheted down the differential factor to 1.5 and, after a rate study that it just ordered, the city would likely close the gap further.
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The commissioners want a greater say in the city’s water extension policies, capital investments and long-range planning. The city has tried to address their desire through regular communication and a policy that gives the county veto authority over water line extensions. (Lapsley says the city has not followed the policy.)
The long view is this: Over the past three years the city has steadily moved closer to what the county has demanded — making rate adjustments that benefit outside customers (at the expense of city ratepayers), increasing communication and cooperation and responding quickly (and sometimes at city expense) to water line requests for job-creating industries.
After Lapsley finished his prosecution with an unanswered closing argument, commissioners delivered a guilty verdict and pronounced a sentence: The state Legislature hands control of the city water system to unelected regulators in Raleigh.
As City Councilman Jeff Miller observed, the commissioners are exhibiting an authoritarian style of leadership that is alienating constituents countywide and poisoning the well for cooperation we need on a wide variety of challenges.
“The style they are governing with is not good,” Miller said. “This is not how efficient government runs. It seems to be that way at the federal level and the state level. It’s the bully pulpit or nothing.”
If commissioners stay on this path, it will be unsurprising to learn a year from now that they are themselves judged by an electorate thirsting for a new brand of leadership.