McGuire: service to Cave Creek paramount

This letter is in response to Arizona Corporation Commissioner Mayes’ statements in the September 27 issue of The Desert Advocate (‘We won’t stop asking tough questions’).

As representatives of the Town of Cave Creek, we expect and welcome tough questions. But an inordinate number of those questions were aimed at getting Cave Creek to give in to the authority of the Arizona Corporation Commission.

This is a complex issue. To my knowledge there is no municipality that is subject to the authority of the commission. Nor would our sister communities want us to acquiesce. This could be a dangerous precedent. Ms Mayes repeatedly asked our attorney to express an opinion about jurisdiction; time and again Mr. Cohen tried to bring the meeting back to the cooperative arrangement for the benefit of the Desert Hills customers. I do not recall Ms. Mayes once asking the commission’s legal council to clarify jurisdiction in front of those in attendance. Is this the line of questioning commission members need to take?

Our brief record operating the Desert Hills Water Company (DHWC) speaks for itself. No outages have occurred and the American Water Company has worked diligently with the former owners (who now work for the Town of Cave Creek) and our town staff to insure the health and welfare of the DHWC customers. We are a municipality. Our role is service to our citizens and others. Ms. Mayes can push the jurisdictional issue all she (and Mr. Mundell) want, but this petty line of questioning will not bring one drop of water to the beleaguered residents of Desert Hills.

On a broader front, our community will own Cave Creek Water Company. The sooner the present owners recognize that they are wasting their money (and that of the citizens of Cave Creek) on stalling tactics, the sooner they can take their wages of investment and leave. Long ago we made a monetary offer to Global Water that would recoup their investment and provide a reasonable profit. They refused to make a reasonable counteroffer.

I was also disappointed at the commission hearing to hear Mr. Hill of Global Water state that he did not want DHWC even though he offered the former owner a million dollars more than we paid. He did this within our council chambers just before our unanimous vote to close our deal. Aesop told us about the fox and the grapes.

We appeared before the commission to answer questions and to require Cave Creek Water Company to continue supplying water to the Desert Hills system. Very soon, that will no longer be necessary, as we have found alternate sources of water and we have expedited the upgrades started by the former owners.

I found most of the members of the Corporation Commission diligent and respectful. Only two members seemed determined to push the jurisdictional issue at the expense of cooperative efforts to help the Desert Hills customers. I support former Vice Mayor Mozilo in asking you to replace Ms. Mayes with someone who is more focused on service to Arizona residents rather than pushing a jurisdictional issue that will not be legally decided by any of the parties now in dispute.

Thomas McGuire

Cave Creek Councilman