I
f your high school education included an
given by stakeholders to utility management, or
exploration of classic literature, then you
given by management to a board, by a board to
may remember a certain category of titles:
a chartered system, by ratepayers to a published
among the staples—Hemingway, Dickens,
rate scale, and so on.
Austen, and so on—there was inevitably a collection of assigned titles that dealt specifically with big ideas about government. Not big G Government, but rather government with respect to humans governing other
humans. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, or George Orwell’s Animal Farm, immediately come to mind: stories which explored—in symbol—not just the hows of the way
The issue of utility governance structures is receiving more attention than ever before as national, state, and local policymakers engage in discussions over what governance approaches may be best under different circumstances. These public conversations are being driven in part by interest in additional governance models beyond just the “traditional” public model, such as consolidation, regional-
people organized them-
ization, private ownership,
selves into governing bod-
authors hoped to explore aspects of human nature. What follows are not essays on literature, but articles focused on Governance, specifically utility governance structures and their related issues. The articles con-
...the clean water utility’s service - and mission involve providing a resource necessary for a population’s very survival.
tain different perspectives on why certain governance models have unique advantages—and can even be superior to other models—as seen by the utility leaders who are operating within them. And at the root of each structure’s case for governance, much like what’s at the root of each literary nov-
el’s case for government, is the concept of trust:
in Golding and Orwell’s books, trust given by people to the leaders and systems in which they live; for the clean water sector organizations, trust
ships, and not-for-profit cooperatives, but they are also occurring because of a small number of high-profile failures at drinking water and clean water utilities, which are leading some to question the continued viability of existing models in the utility sector.
In this context, trust becomes even more relevant, since the clean water utility’s service—and mission—involve providing a resource necessary for a population’s very survival. While not as lofty as an essay by Faulkner, governance policy on board management, financial reporting, voting structure, even meeting protocol—which may, at times, seem like so much red tape—are in actuality part of an endeavor as distinguished as any concept explored by classic literature: serving the public trust.
11 Summer 2018
in exploring the whys, the
public-private partner-
CLEAN WATER ADVOCATE
ies but also the whys. And