The council was expected to narrow its search for a private utility company to manage the department to only two companies Monday night, but could not agree on which two of the four companies to interview.
“We have four good companies,” Mayor Bill Hereford said, opening up discussion about the process to narrow the selection to two.
He said it was his understanding the council wanted to narrow the selection process to two companies, then hold a special session to interview representatives of both.
“I gave this a lot of thought,” Councilwoman Dot Wood said.
She recommended the council move forward and interview SouthWest Water Company and ESG Operations Inc.
Her motion died for lack of a second.
Wood followed with a motion for the council to hire ESG Operations Inc. outright, but that motion also died for lack of a second.
She again made a motion to interview SouthWest Water Company and ESG Operations Inc., and finally got a second from James McGowan.
McGowan has repeatedly said he does not want to hire a private utility company to manage the city’s Water Department, saying the council and mayor are pushing off their responsibility to manage the department on an outside company.
He said the city needs to hire its own manager to run the department.
“The only reason I’m seconding that motion is to narrow it down to those two (companies),” McGowan said.
Councilman Donnie Todd said he was against narrowing the council selection to those two, saying he had not shared pertinent information about the companies.
He said one company would do its billing somewhere else, not locally, and another company would not have a manager living in the city. He did not say which company would not do what at Monday night’s council meeting.
In a roll call vote, Wood, McGowan and Gossett voted to interview SouthWest Water Company and ESG Operations Inc., while Todd, Donnie Guinn and Hereford voted against interviewing the two companies.
Todd, who since September has wanted the council to hire Clearwater Solutions Inc. of Opelika, made a recommendation to interview ESG and ClearWater Solutions.
Guinn seconded Todd’s motion, but the vote was again split, with McGowan, Gossett and Wood voting against interviewing those two private utility companies.
After the motion failed to pass because of a deadlock, Guinn made a motion to interview all four companies, and Todd second the motion.
McGowan again tried to convince the council to consider hiring its own utility manager.
“We have all the tools to do it ourselves,” he said.
McGowan and Gossett voted not to interview all four private utility companies, while Wood, Hereford, Guinn and Todd voted in favor of the move.
The council will interview the companies next week. The companies are ClearWater Solutions, ESG Operations Inc., SouthWest Water Company and Artesian Utilities Systems Management. The exact time and day of the interviews had not been announced as of late Tuesday.
Water management proposals from each of the four utility companies are posted on the city’s Web site at www.epell.net.
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