An uprising by a Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, town’s residents who are unhappy about the privatization of their town’s sewer system moved into uncharted territory this month with the creation of a panel to rewrite the town’s governing charter to block the sale of the town’s wastewater utility.
“It’s obviously untested, but we think it’s got a good chance of withstanding a challenge,” said Lauren Gallagher, an attorney advising the study commission. Gallagher is a partner in Rudolph Clarke LLC, a suburban Philadelphia law firm that represents towns and municipal authorities. But opponents saw the sale as a mechanism for town officials to sign themselves a blank check on the backs of wastewater customers, a tax hike disguised as a sewer rate increase to the benefit of private investors.“This seems like a kind of thing that home rule is meant for,” said Osei.
The lesson from Montgomery County is that one of the most potent tools to thwart a sale is to organize political opposition before a governing body makes a formal decision to privatize. That was evident this year in Bucks County, where the Bucks County Water and Sewer Authority announced in July it had agreed to negotiate exclusively with Aqua to sell its sprawling system for $1.1 billion.
In another Chester County community, Willistown Township, opponents of the town’s $17.5 million sale to Aqua are banking on a Commonwealth Court appeal filed in August by the Pennsylvania Office of Consumer Advocate, which challenged the PUC’s approval of the sale. The consumer advocate says the sale will fail to deliver “affirmative public benefits” and would instead harm all Aqua customers with higher rates.