Bexar Met demotes critic
MySA.com: BexarMet demotes critic, draws scrutiny over water supply, contract
By stripping board member Lesley Wenger of her vice presidential title Monday night, a majority of Bexar Metropolitan Water District directors signaled their complete confidence in the utility’s aggressive general manager.The question now is whether their loyalty to Gil Olivares will be rewarded with a better functioning water agency or if Olivares drives them all off a cliff.
To judge the latest controversy in the beleaguered district, which last summer required customers in one neighborhood to boil their drinking water, you have to go back to December.
That’s when Olivares presented a plan to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to fix persistent water supply problems in several North Side areas, including Timberwood Park, Stone Oak, Hollywood Park and Hill Country Village.
Olivares asked for, but was not granted, an emergency declaration by state officials, which would have spared BexarMet from having to bid out the contract.
By his own admission, Olivares said he was not willing to sit back and accept that answer, which would have delayed necessary improvements before the summer and potential shortages set in.
So Olivares said he re-tooled the proposed $5 million contract with Applied Water Management Inc. into a $1 million “professional services” pact that, by definition, requires no bidding.
On Jan. 18, Olivares persuaded a majority of BexarMet board members to approve the contract and thus triggered a series of events that led to Monday’s action.
There is a reason for the bidding process. While it very well might be true that it would take a little longer, changing the contract so that it didn’t have to be bid on is dirty. Good for Leslie Wenger for pointing it out. I just love what Victor Villarreal, board president, had to say.
Board President Victor Villarreal, however, said Wenger’s “continued misunderstanding” of the contract is the issue.
“She’s said the same thing now for the third meeting in a row,” he said. “The TCEQ may come back with some concerns, but we have no doubt that we are within our legal rights.”
She didn’t misunderstand. Making a contract that needed to be bid into a non-bid “professional services” agreement might in the end be barely within the letter of the law but it isn’t even remotely in the spirit of the law. Sadly, things like this are the reasons we find ourselves over-regulated. If this is within the letter of the law then the loophole will have to be closed with another piece of legislation.
Whether it was within the letter of the law is yet to be seen but obviously they spanked Lesley Wenger for not falling in line. This isn’t what we want to see from our utilities.
Technorati Tags: Lesley Wenger, TCEQ, Victor Villarreal, Gil Olivares, Bexar Met, Bexar Metropolitan Water District
Filed under: Bexar Met, Bexar Metropolitan Water District, Gil Olivares, Lesley Wenger, TCEQ, Victor Villarreal
[...] The part of this particular piece that bothers me is the quote from Kevin Wolff in support of Gil Olivares. We know from the January stories that Gil Olivares has no problems finding a way around the TCEQ. When they told him no he just “re-tooled” it so he didn’t need their approval. That is the same proposal that Leslie Wenger was talking to her Stone Oak constituents about last week and what Jaime Castillo feels is the straw that will break the camels back. Kevin Wolff patting him on the back and calling him Buddy is not what you want to see from a councilman when there is no question that Olivares will bend if not break the rules to suit him. [...]
[...] This is exactly Gil Olivares has done before. If they don’t like the answer they are getting they just work around it to get what they [...]