CULLMAN — There’s a lot we still don’t know about the newly-created water cooperative the county commission formed last week.

What we do know, from the inch-thick stack of documents that came out of last Tuesday’s contentious county commission meeting, is that the county transferred ownership of the third-largest rural water department in the state—including approximately $30 million in assets and another $20 million in debt—to the South Cumberland Cooperative District (SCCD), a newly-formed entity that essentially takes over the old water department.

In explaining the gestation of the board Tuesday, Associate county commissioner Doug Williams countered accusations by commission chairman James Graves that the board was born in secrecy.

“It wasn’t the first he’d heard of it,” said Williams. “We’d attempted, on several occasions, to talk to the chairman about forming a water board and about several other issues. We’d had several conversations with our bonding attorney and with our county attorney, at different times. Whenever we had those conversations, Mr. Graves ran his lip out about two or three inches and would storm out of the room like a two year-old. We soon realized that it was useless to try to have any discussion with him on this topic.”

Graves has vocally opposed the circumstances leading to the board’s creation,  having sent a letter to the editor to The Cullman Times calling on voters to mandate a change in leadership in the two open associate commissioner races up for vote in the June 1 primary. Graves castigated Williams and fellow commissioner Wayne Willingham last Tuesday for their handling of the day-long session of commission meetings and recesses that allowed the board—along with the new water district—to be created in a single day, calling the proceedings “county government at its worst” as the meeting adjourned.

Williams said the board’s existence is the product of a long-term effort to separate one of the county’s biggest departments from the constant rotation of county leadership, and has nothing to do with ramming a new idea through the approval process behind anyone’s back.

“The Association of County Commissioners of Alabama—of which we are a member—very, very, very heavily suggests that departments like water, for instance, are under the operation of a board instead of directly under the commissions,” Williams explained. “The idea originally came up in probably 2004 or 2005. Myself, commissioner (Stanley) Yarbrough and commissioner (Wiley) Kitchens met with an engineering firm that brought the idea to us that we needed to be under a water board.

“One of the things that any board can do—whether it be a park board; sanitation; library, and the like—it builds a wall of protection of liability from the county general fund, and that was one main benefit of going to a board. We shouldn’t be micromanaging those things, and if I have the opportunity, it’s not the only department in Cullman County I would like to protect from liability.”

Nor is it the only water department under cooperative oversight statewide, he added:

“Ninety-seven or ninety-eight percent of the water systems in the state of Alabama are under a board,” Williams said. “Cullman County is actually a great example: every single water system in the county is under a board of its citizens, except—until last week—the Cullman County Water Department. Our department still belongs to the customers; it just has a co-op overseeing it. Water’s a necessity of life, and my belief is that it should not be a political football. If somebody wants to fight about having parks, we can live without  parks. But we can’t live without water. Unfortunately, water was becoming such a hot potato politically, I don’t think anybody was making good decisions.”

The new board will assemble for the first time next week, meeting at 1 p.m. May 10 at the former water department headquarters—now rebranded as the SCCD office—at 2020 Beech Avenue SE in Cullman. For now, the frequency of meeting times is not known, but will likely be addressed at the meeting, along with the establishing of bylaws and other first-run matters.

The transferred assets constitute everything—the water department headquarters on Beech Avenue; miles and miles of water lines that serve customers countywide; the trucks; the books; the furniture; the equipment—everything, in short, that the water department had owned as a county entity.

In addition, the transfer encompasses the oversight of all 30 water department employees, from manager David Bussman to maintenance workers to secretaries to customer service representatives. Williams said he met with the employees individually Monday, assuring them that the transfer will not disrupt their pay, benefits, retirement plans or other features attached to the terms of their employment.

For more on this story, check out upcoming editions of The Cullman Times.



*  Benjamin Bullard can be reached by e-mail at bbullard@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131 ext. 270.