household

Deal to settle Tampa Bay Water reservoir lawsuit comes up one vote short

By Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Tuesday, September 20, 2011

A sharply divided Tampa Bay Water board voted Monday to settle its lawsuit against the company that designed its flawed reservoir, with HDR Engineering handing over $30 million — far less than the cost of a repair, which means the ratepayers would likely pick up the rest of the tab.

The regional utility’s management announced the settlement in a news release, and an HDR executive hailed it as the best possible solution.

But there was a problem. The settlement passed by a vote of 4-3 — and it turns out that’s not enough.

Late Monday, two Pinellas County commissioners who were on the losing side of the vote pointed out what was wrong: The rules governing Tampa Bay Water require at least five of the board’s nine members to ratify any legal settlement.

Votes to approve the settlement fell one short, so “it doesn’t count,” said Pinellas Commissioner Susan Latvala.

Latvala and Commissioner Neil Brickfield had voted against the settlement and then heard about the problem from county attorneys who were familiar with how Tampa Bay Water was set up, she said.

As a result, the board will have to vote on the proposed settlement again at its Oct. 17 meeting, according to spokeswoman Michelle Biddle Rapp.

But this time it will be different. Monday’s decision to settle the case, as with all previous discussions of the lawsuit, took place behind closed doors, thanks to an exemption in Florida’s open government law. No one in the public knew the terms of the settlement discussions in advance. Now they do.

“Stay tuned for another installment,” joked Latvala, who has seen the utility stumble repeatedly over glitches with its desalination plant and its relations with other government agencies.

For nearly two years, Tampa Bay Water officials have said they hoped the companies that designed and built the reservoir would bear most, if not all, of the cost of fixing its cracks.

Two of the contractors that worked on the reservoir had previously settled the utility’s claims for $6.75 million. Added to the proposed settlement with HDR, that makes $36.75 million in damages — which falls far short of the repair cost, estimated at $121 million.

The decision on how to pay for the rest — and whether it will mean a rate hike — will come next year, said Tampa Bay Water general manager Gerald Seeber. The staff is predicting rates might go up 10 to 15 cents per thousand gallons of water used. The average Tampa Bay area household uses about 8,000 gallons, so that would be 80 cents to $1.20 per month on the average bill.

Latvala, Brickfield and Hillsborough County Commissioner Sandy Murman voted to oppose the settlement, while St. Petersburg City Council member Karl Nurse, Pasco County Commissioners Anne Hildebrand and Ted Schrader and New Port Richey Mayor Bob Consalvo voted to go ahead with it.

Two members weren’t there: Tampa City Council member Charlie Miranda was recovering from surgery and Hillsborough County Commissioner Mark Sharpe was attending a Hillsborough Area Regional Transit committee meeting. Sharpe could not be reached for comment, but Miranda said he’d be at the October meeting “even if I have to find someone to drive me.”

Nurse said he voted for the settlement because he was worried that even if Tampa Bay Water were to win, HDR would appeal and drag the case out for years. Hildebrand said any rate increase would be “just pennies.”

But Brickfield predicted water customers “are going to feel a lot like me — not happy.”

The utility opened the 15.5 billion-gallon C.W. Bill Young Regional Reservoir in June 2005 as a place to store water skimmed from the Alafia River, Hillsborough River and Tampa Bypass Canal. The embankment’s top layer is a mixture of soil and cement to prevent erosion. That’s what cracked in December 2006. Some cracks were up to 400 feet long and up to 15½ inches deep. Workers patched the cracks, but the fix didn’t last.

Last month Tampa Bay Water approved a contract with Kiewit Infrastructure South to repair the reservoir and also boost its capacity by 3 billion gallons for $156 million. The company has promised to finish in two years — during which the reservoir will be drained, forcing the utility to use its desalination plant more.

Craig Pittman can be reached at craig@sptimes.com.

Commissioner Murman mentioned in this Creative Loafing article on HART:

Posted by Mitch Perry on Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 11:46 AM

As we’ve noted on various occasions, last November’s rejection of a transit tax in Hillsborough County not only killed the possibility of a light rail system being built anytime soon, but nine months later, there aren’t any plans now over the next 10 years to revisit the issue.

However, members who serve on Hillsborough County’s transit agency, HART, have said that what they can do for now is to concentrate on what they do best – efficient bus service.

But when it came time on Monday to vote to approve a maximum millage rate that the board will consider, which meant voting for a minimal increase in taxes to alleviate a large reduction in service, one Hillsborough County Republican chose to eschew the no-taxes mantra of his party and supported the modest measure, and one did not.

The millage increase would go from .4682 to .5. When the issue came before the board two months ago, both Sandy Murman and Mark Sharpe voted against it.

Murman said again Monday that she couldn’t support the raise, saying she would look like a “hypocrite” after supporting a decrease in the millage last week with her position on the County Commission. “I think we have to dig a little deeper,” she said, adding that asking all of the taxpayers in Hillsborough to raise their millage when only a small percentage utilize their services would be unfair.

But commissioner Kevin Beckner warned that a failure to raise the millage would interfere with the stated goal of the board to increase its basic services, not cut them. He then asked Katharine Eagan, the chief operating officer for HART, what would happen if the board ultimately voted not to increase the millage?

She recited a litany of service cuts that would include, eliminating weekend service in south Hillsborough on weekends, no service out to Brandon hospital on weekends, no Christmas or Thanksgiving service, and fewer rides from Brandon to MacDill Air Force Base.

HART has already cut 1.4 percent of its bus routes since March of 2010, but another reduction would eliminate two to three percent of current routes, or roughly twice as much as what has already been cut.

It was also revealed that the millage increase, which would add $1.8 million to HART’s coffers, would break down to about 41 cents per month to Hillsborough citizens via their property taxes (that’s based on the average household value of $90,420 in 2012).

After listening to Eagan, Hillsborough County Commissioner Mark Sharpe said that he had changed his mind, and would now vote for the tax increase. Calling Commissioner a “kindred spirit,” Sharpe said he understood where she was coming from, but said he couldn’t go along with her in not approving the raise, adding,”My concern is we’d be entering into a death spiral, we’d be fulfilling a prophesy,” by eliminating service routes.

Today’s vote was on setting the maximum millage, but not the final vote locking in the new millage rates.

Sandy Murman

Tale of Two Republicans manifested at HART meeting