Cave Creek council becomes water board        
by Jason Stone

CAVE CREEK – This town made a big splash getting into the water business last week by acquiring the assets of Desert Hills Water Company. But the town’s intended dissolution of the company dried up Monday evening during its first water board meeting at the end of a five‑hour council session.

The council, which voted itself as the board for the newly acquired utility, was hoping to dissolve the company but the town’s lawyers were not ready to proceed. Several representatives of the Arizona Corporation Commission were in attendance at the council meeting.

The town’s entry into the water utility business drew a near standing‑room‑only crowd at the meeting. However, by the time the lengthy council meeting ended and the water board meeting began, only a handful of attendees remained.

In addition to voting itself as the new board for the embattled water company, the council also voted to give town manager Usama Abujbarah authority over matters concerning the utility.

In a highly questionable and unexpected move, the town bought the troubled Desert Hills Water Co. for $2.5 million at a special meeting on Sept. 12. The water provider serves 1,600 residents near an area the town hopes to annex. DHW came under fire this summer when hundreds of residents in a one‑square‑mile area suffered daily outages over several months.

The corporation commission grilled Cave Creek officials at a meeting last week regarding the acquisition. Global Water Resources, the owner of Cave Creek Water Company, has made several offers to purchase Desert Hills Water.

Additionally, the town is in the midst of a legal battle in an attempt to acquire Cave Creek Water from Global through condemnation. Attorneys for Global claim the town was in violation of Arizona’s open meeting law because Cave Creek allegedly did not hold two public hearing before voting to file the condemnation action.

Some Cave Creek residents at the regular council meeting criticized the corporation commission’s perceived favoritism toward Global.

“They obviously had an agenda ... to protect Global Water,” said former vice mayor Ralph Mozillo. “And (Global president) Trevor Hill should have won an Oscar for his performance.”

Planning commissioner Bob Williams said, “It was obvious Global was very unhappy with the purchase and went down there (to the commission) to complain.”

Resident George Ross spoke in favor of the DHW purchase, saying “it is an ensured future source of (Central Arizona Project) water and an ensured revenue source.”

Not all were happy with the sale, however. Desert Hills resident Barry Sprink said he does not like being forced to deal with Cave Creek when not living in the town.

“This is taxation without representation,” Sprink said. “We can’t come out here and vote you out of office. We’re hoping (the commission) has the moxie to stand up to you and say ‘no.’”

Reach the reporter at jason@thedesertadvocate.com.