Calls city’s acquisition of water system ‘complete’
By Daniel Brannigan
The Community News
The City of Willow Park added a new wrinkle to the battle over Deer Creek Water Works (DCWW) this week, adopting a policy statement during the council meeting Tuesday, May 15 that rejects an offer made to purchase the embattled water system.
After a 24-minute executive session, departing Mayor Brad Johnson read a prepared statement about the issue detailing the city’s stance.
“In retrospect, Willow Park purchased the water systems (DCWW and Dyegard) for a fair, if not favorable price, set reasonable water rates to assure the continuity of the system, implemented aquifer conservation practices and has moved forward with a capital improvement program to advance water availability in eastern Parker County,” Johnson said. “No comparable purchase offer has timely been submitted to us for the system we acquired, even after we agreed to review one. Our acquisition of the water system in our opinion is complete. We look forward to continuing to provide quality utility service to our customers as a regional water provider in eastern Parker County.”
The council unanimously approved the statement, ensuring the continuation of a legal battle that began almost two years ago with the city's purchase of DCWW and Dyegard from Doyle Hanley for $1,000 down and a note of about $4.8 million to be paid out over 40 years at six percent interest.
Soon after, a lawsuit was filed in the State Office of Administrative Hearings to block the sales transfer merger by several east Parker County cities, a regional water provider and a community coalition.
Although an agreement in principle was reached in September in Austin, Willow Park did not officially respond to an offer to purchase the system until now.
“(DCWW) is too valuable an asset (to sell),” Johnson said after the meeting. “We’re not going to do that to our citizens.”
Hudson Oaks Mayor Pat Deen said the news was a “slap in the face with regionalization and how you work with neighbors.”
“I’m extremely disappointed that Willow Park doesn’t see what’s wrong with this picture and fully acknowledge that a city shouldn’t own a water system in another city,” he said.
Deen said he would recommended to the Hudson Oaks City Council that they continue to pursue the matter through legal avenues.
“If sincere intent was there to do what was right (during negotiations in Austin), then they failed,” Deen said. “We got where we said we were going to go. I think this sends a very clear picture of what their intent was all along.”
An active docket number still exists on the matter with SOAH.
For more on this story, see the May 18 issue of The Community News.
(Willow Park policy statement on Deer Creek Water Works. Read by Mayor Brad Johnson on 5/15, adopted unanimously by the council after executive session):
Practically no issue during my term as Mayor has commanded more of my attention or more of my time than the issue of water – the adequate supply of water; the conservation of water; the use of water; and, the price of water. While there are other services that cities routinely provide – police, fire, parks, trash collection, roads, subdivision rules – water has seemed to be predominate.
Most residents today take for granted that when they flip the switch the light will come on, when they turn up the thermostat the gas heater will warm the house, or when they turn on their computer it will connect with the internet. These are all utilities we rely on just like water. And you know what, the price of all these utilities have gone up: gas, electricity, cable and phone service.
Willow Park is a great and unique community. Willow Park tries to offer the amenities of the city in a country setting. More and more of our residents are moving from Fort Worth, Hurst, Euless, Irving, or Arlington to Willow Park. They come here for the lifestyle, the openness, and the fact that they get more home for their money. It’s good for them and good for the growth of Willow Park. We welcome our new citizens and the energy and vision that they bring with them.
Not all the resources are the same in Willow Park as they are in the Metroplex. The big cities have surface water – we use water wells. The big cities have almost an unlimited water capacity using east Texas reservoirs – we are limited to what is in the underground aquifer. The big cities have multi-million dollar budgets – we are struggling to meet the costs of growth. It’s not unexpected that some of our new residents believe they have unlimited water, at lower prices. They are used to watering at will their 5 to 10 thousand foot city lots and landscape in the city. It’s different when you’re watering a one acre lot lawn of St. Augustine with a landscape architect designed set of flower beds in Willow Park, with our more limited resources.
We’d all like to drive 16 mile a gallon pick ups or SUVs and pay the 1970 price of a $1.00 per gallon for gasoline. Why do we turn up the thermostats in the summer and down in the winter? The costs of ALL utilities affect our lives.
Former Mayor Jim Poythress made the decision to initiate the regionalization of water resources in eastern Parker County. Rather than have unlimited withdrawals depleting the aquifer, it was decided that one coordinated system could better manage our limited water resource. A coordinated utility could disperse the municipal pumps to lessen the aquifer drawn down, increase the recharge rate, and provide reliable water availability. And you know, it worked. When all of north Texas was under stringent water rationing last summer, Willow Park wasn’t.
To help accomplish this, Willow Park purchased the Dyegard and Deer Creek systems in 2005. The reaction was almost immediate. Willow Park paid too much, set the rates too high, didn’t have the experience or should have used Parker County Utility District (PCUD) as the regional provider. The big city residents did what big city residents do – they hired lawyers and sued.
Nevermind that PCUD is not regional, has no employees, has never run any utility system, doesn’t even today perform the duties that its state Representative filed a special bill for, and is incapable of arranging financing of its own to make an offer to Willow Park. Nevermind that the aquifer management system which Willow Park has put in place, is what is now the subject of several bills in the Legislature. Nevermind that the water system Willow Park has been accused of over paying for has been valued for much more than the purchase price – by the plaintiff’s own experts.
Yes, Perkins Engineering Consultants Inc., retained by the Deer Creek plaintiffs to value the Deer Creek water system for them found that it was worth either $3 million or $6 million more, depending on the accounting method, than Willow Park paid for it. Maybe that fact alone speaks to why the other cities, or PCUD, now want the system. It does not explain why the media has failed to report the obvious.
Perkins Engineering in their November 2006 report also went on to conclude that “the potential for nominal rate reductions after a sale…appear minimal.” In other words, the plaintiff’s expert concludes that if Hudson Oaks or PCUD, with someone else’s money, were to purchase Deer Creek they wouldn’t be able to significantly reduce the current water rates.
In retrospect, Willow Park purchased the water systems for a fair, if not favorable price, set reasonable water rates to assure the continuity of the system, implemented aquifer conservation practices and has move forward with a capital improvement program to advance water availability in eastern Parker County. No comparable purchase offer has timely been submitted to us for the system we acquired, even after we agreed to review one. Our acquisition of the water systems in our opinion is complete. We look forward to continuing to provide quality utility service to our customers as a regional water provider in eastern Parker County.
