PRESCOTT - A Prescott City Councilman's Tuesday reference to regional cooperation as "horse manure" apparently struck a nerve with the Town of Chino Valley this week.
In a strongly-worded letter to Prescott Mayor Jack Wilson, Chino Valley Mayor Karen Fann maintained that while Chino Valley continues to work toward cooperation in the area, "If some of the Prescott council members feel regionalism is 'crap & manure,' we are not sure how we can ever work together as a team and serve our respective communities and taxpayers as we were elected to do."
Fann's letter concluded by asking the city to "put the hatchet down and start working together..."
The matter stems from this week's Prescott City Council discussion about the city's attempts to get conditional use permits for the installation of arsenic treatment equipment on Prescott's water wells in Chino Valley.
Because the equipment was not in place by January, as originally planned, the Prescott City Council learned this week that the city was facing interest costs of about $33,000 to its wellhead treatment contractor, which had already invested in the production of the equipment.
That scenario led several council members to question Chino Valley's role in the delay, which, they said, led to the delay in installation.
The comments of Councilman Jim Lamerson, especially, appeared to attract the attention of Chino Valley. In maintaining that Chino Valley should have been more accommodating with its conditional use permits, Lamerson referred to "this so-called crap of regional cooperation; that is just what it is - horse manure."
Fann's letter pointed out that Chino Valley officials had received "numerous calls of concern" from their constituents about the comments, and had since listened to a recording of the meeting.
"We are disappointed and deeply disturbed" about the comments, Fann said. While she said Chino Valley officials were "not sure why the Town of Chino Valley was attacked so viciously," Fann speculated that some Prescott council members might not know all the facts in the case.
To rectify that, Fann sent along a detailed summary of Chino's dealings on the matter, along with copies of letters, e-mails, memos and photos to back up her claim.
Fann's timeline culminated with the Chino Valley Town Council's Feb. 14 approval of permits for arsenic treatment on four of Prescott's water wells, while she said the two communities currently are working on the permits for the remaining two wells.
"As you can see, this process has been going on for over two years now and at no time do we feel Chino Valley has ever delayed Prescott's attempts to comply with the arsenic remediation," stated Fann's letter.
Prescott officials were somewhat reluctant to comment on the matter on Thursday.
Wilson, who had voiced concerns about his fellow council members' comments after Tuesday's meeting, said Thursday that he does not intend to respond to Fann's letter in writing. "I don't want to throw gasoline on the fire," Wilson said.
Rather, he hopes to arrange a meeting between the two councils to try to resolve the matter.
"My preferred method is always dialogue," Wilson said. "I would rather do that than discussing this in the media."
Lamerson - while he declined to comment specifically on Fann's timeline summary - said Thursday, "I guess the thing I would say is that I wish another municipality would have done the same thing that Prescott did (when an arsenic issue arose for Chino Valley-area customers of the Wilhoit Water Company), and that was to stand up and say, 'What can we do?'"
Even so, Lamerson said his frustration stemmed more from the federal mandate on arsenic, rather than from Chino Valley's response.
"I'm really not mad at Chino," he said. "Too much government's the issue. It has pitted government against government."
Prescott's push for arsenic treatment began several years ago with the prospect of new, stricter federal standards on arsenic levels in drinking water. The new standards went into effect in January 2006, and Prescott originally had until January 2008 to comply. The city has since applied for an extension until January 2009.
Reader Comments
Posted: Friday, March 07, 2008
Article comment by:
Dave
"someday maybe grownups will be in charge in BOTH places???" Nice thought, but voters will have to learn to elect them. I've seen responsible people run and get soundly defeated because voters vote for the better political appearance and rarely look under the surface to see what they are electing.
Posted: Friday, March 07, 2008
Article comment by:
James Beam
In regard to Mr. Lamerson fecal comment on the situation in Chino Valley, expert opinions are always appreciated.
Posted: Friday, March 07, 2008
Article comment by:
dcathill
someday maybe grownups will be in charge in BOTH places.
Posted: Friday, March 07, 2008
Article comment by:
Tom Steele
There should be regional cooperation on ALL water matters. Clearly, Chino Valley has backed out of one agreement on Big Chino and suprised everyone with it's own water pipline proposal. Prescott needs to look to regional cooperation too, and not just "assume" they take the lead in all matters.
