|
“This [proposal] opens the
door for the wholesale theft of the assets of the people of
Toledo,” Kucinich said as he opened his remarks.
In 1977, 31-year-old
Dennis Kucinich, the newly-elected mayor of Cleveland – a
city on the verge of financial ruin, faced a decision that
would define both his political future and the fiscal well
being of the residents of Cleveland. Bankers offered him the
opportunity to take Cleveland Municipal Power off his hands
and move it into the private sector. Privatization would
help the City overcome its financial shortfall in the short
run but it would also, he knew, elevate utility rates for
those residents to an unacceptable level. He said no and
fought to reject the sale.
Cleveland continued its
downward slide into bankruptcy. Kucinich lost his bid for
re-election in 1979 and what might have been a political
career for the ages was in ruins. Kucinich wandered the
political wilderness for the next 15 years until 1994, when
he moved back to Cleveland and won a seat in the Ohio State
Senate. In 1996, he won a seat in the U.S. House of
Representatives where he served for four terms. In 1998,
Cleveland City Council honored him for having had the
“courage and foresight” to stand up to the banks, saving the
city an estimated $195 million between 1985 and 1995.
Given his history,
publicly-owned utilities are something of a passion for the
candidate.
“You have a regional water
system and you have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on
it recently,” he said of the current 10-year, $500 million
repair and upgrade to the Toledo water plant. “Why does
Toledo have to give up their assets?”
Kucinich then ticked off
his concerns about the proposed Toledo Area Water Authority
(TAWA) as outlined in the MOU which was developed by an area
working group led by consultant Eric Rothstein who was hired
by the Toledo Area Chamber of Commerce.
He dismissed the proposed
TAWA structure that would grant wholesale prices to business
clients while assigning retail prices to households. Such an
arrangement, said Kucinich, would mean that household rates
will be increased in order “to subsidize business
interests.” Furthermore, he noted, “nothing in the language
[of the MOU] stops the privatization” of the water plant.
“It is axiomatic that when you privatize something that
belongs to the public, the rates are going to go up.”
He raised the issue of the
proposed language and its ambivalence about whether the
sewer system and storm water system are going to be merely
given away as part of the deal in light of those two systems
considerable value.
He was troubled by the
transition costs as spelled out n the MOU which essentially
means that “Toledo will provide the money that TAWA would
use to pay for the system.”
He questioned the fact
that the MOU “contemplates building a separate water
system,” a move he called probably unnecessary and certainly
expensive for Toledoans. Moreover, he said, a second intake
system in Lake Erie would not have any health benefits with
respect to the algae blooms that shut down production in
2014.
He objected to the fact
that Toledo, as proposed in the MOU, would have only two of
the seven representatives on the TAWA board, calling such an
arrangement “taxation without representation.” He
particularly took issue with the fact that such a board
would meet only four times a year meaning that there would
be “no accountability and no transparency” from this group
of out-of-touch unelected officials.
He also took issue with
the fact that some would believe that Toledo needs this type
of regionalism to ensure economic growth.
“Water is the future,”
said the former mayor of Cleveland. Toledo, he observed, is
in the enviable position of being one of the leading cities
in the country when it comes to access to water. Why give
away that advantage and ensure higher rates in the bargain?
Thursday’s information
session was organized by former Toledo Mayor Carty
Finkbeiner, who is part of the Protect Our Water (P.O.W.)
group and Rev. Cedric Brock, pastor of Mt. Nebo Baptist
Church and president of the Interdenominational Ministerial
Alliance.
The City of Toledo has
proposed placing the Memorandum of Understanding on the
ballot in November for the voters of Toledo to express their
approval, or disapproval. A series of six town hall meetings
has concluded during which residents were given the
opportunity to hear from City representatives and consultant
Rothstein on the benefits of the MOU and to pose questions
of their elected officials. Meanwhile Rothstein and the area
representatives are at work on another MOU that would omit
Toledo from the regional pact should such an arrangement
become necessary.
|
