Robert Fields | WVOW News
LOGAN City Council members this week approved the first reading of an ordinance designed to consolidate the City of Logan’s utilities under a single governing body.
Attorney Paul Ellis told council members Tuesday that the two utilities subject to consolidation are the city’s water board and sanitation board. A consolidated board, according to Ellis, can streamline operations by reducing administrative redundancies, simplifying the operations of both entities. It could also provide a more unified approach to resource management, allowing for better coordination of the city’s water and sanitation services, which city officials say already work together.
“Why do we have two meetings, two sets of employees who actually are helping each other already, and one manager who is the manager of one that’s acting as the manager of the other and all that stuff,” Ellis argued. “It creates duplicity and it creates unnecessary time and expense, etc. So, what this does is it creates a utility board.”
A combined board might also improve customer service by giving residents a single point of contact for all utility-related issues.
However, the transition process can be complex. According to Ellis, combined utility boards fall under a different section of the West Virginia State Code than that which governs the separate utilities. The City of Logan consults with bond counsel John Stump of Steptoe & Johnson PLLC for issues regarding bonds issued by city entities. According to Ellis, a bond was issued by the city’s sanitary board.
Consolidating city utilities into a combined utility board can be complicated when one of the utilities has issued bonds under a specific section of law. Bond agreements may have differing language or legal obligations based on the section of law that governs the bond issuer, making it difficult or impossible for a utility to transition to another agreement model.
However, according to Ellis, this is not a prohibitive issue. He told council members that the bond issue does have to be addressed, but that there are multiple ways the city may do so and that the issue doesn’t stop the city from proceeding with the creation of a combined board. Moreover, he said the bond counsel agrees.
“I talked to him today, as a matter of fact, to kind of confirm that – regardless of whether we make an amendment in this to accommodate it or if we do something separate, that doesn’t impact our ability to move forward on this, to create this board, to have it become effective and to deal with all the other issues except perhaps the existing bond,” said Ellis.
The next reading of the ordinance is set for the Logan City Council’s regular meeting next month.
PHOTO | Robert Fields
Editor's Note : This story previously stated sewage services instead of sanitation services when referenced combining utilities