Bexar Met in more trouble
Express-NewsIt’s probably now only a matter of time before once-skeptical local legislators get behind a bill to eviscerate the board of the Bexar Metropolitan Water District.
Whether true or not, last week’s accusation that the utility is going to be taken over by a vast German privatization conspiracy should be just about all she wrote for BexarMet.
Even those who have tried to be sympathetic to aggressive, yet polarizing, General Manager Gil Olivares see no light at the end of the tunnel.
“I’ve told Gil before: ‘I think you’re trying to do the right things, but, buddy, you inherited Enron’.â€
said City Councilman Kevin Wolff, whose district includes BexarMet customers in northern Bexar County.At this point, the only thing with the potential to derail the folding of BexarMet under Bexar County Commissioners Court is the Voting Rights Act.
More specifically, will legislators and the county be able to persuade the U.S. Department of Justice that dissolving the publicly elected BexarMet board will not harm minority voters?
I have been watching the Bexar Met stories for months now and it is just a mess. I have the feeling that no matter what happens with HB 1565 that it just means that my water bill will be higher. I am already paying a higher bill than my SAWS neighbors and I am sure it won’t miraculously go down if the Bexar County Commissioners Court takes over.
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 himself.
Technorati Tags: Bexar Met, Gil Olivares, Leslie Wenger, HB 1565
Filed under: Bexar Met, Bexar Metropolitan Water District, Gil Olivares, Lesley Wenger
