Ah yes here we go.....around and around...lets play musical chairs!!

Congratulations to the new directors ... wish you the best of luck and looking forward to see your impact on the oversight of BCWA.

Great to see these new directors at work!

Many thanks to all for stepping forward. Best wishes.

It's so nice to see fresh faces & fresh new ideas at the water authority after all these years.

Ms. Mack obviously needs to be replaced. Her rates are exorbitantly high and she lacks integrity. The thoughtful response of the new Board is encouraging.

The lightweight response of the new Executive Director, however, is troubling.

“New BCWA Executive Director Pamela Marchand, also attending her first board meeting, said only that: ‘A cap for legal fees is hard to find.’”

This is not a good sign.

This is tantamount to a figurative throwing up of the hands by the new Executive Director.
Rather than touching the surface lightly, we hoped that the new Executive Director would “hit the ground running” and show the necessary leadership.

We expect the Executive Director to be skilled and qualified enough to manage the lawyer and to have some cogent thoughts as to how to plan, manage and budget the anticipated legal expenses.

An Executive Director who cannot manage the “paid help”?

Not a good sign

Ms. Mack made a slip of the tongue against her own legal profession last night suggesting that attorney's bill their clients on a rainmaking scale.

When it was suggested that Kent County Water Authority only gets billed at around $3000 per month for similar legal services as BCWA, Ms Mack quipped that Kent's attorney looks forward to making up lost billing ground when Kent does a PUC rate filing.

Is this how Ms. Mack believes legal billing works?? Does anyone remember Ms. Mack's $65,000 legal bill for defending BCWA against a $1000 fine in 2011.

All the more reason for putting this out to competitive bid.

What a great meeting to have on tape!!! Thanks to Doug Sampson from Mt. Hope High School for volunteering to video-tape this for us and to get it aired on Cox and Full Channel! We are hoping to also get it online. I suggested last night that it might be a good idea to put it on the BCWA website, but got no response.

When asked who the legal firms were that are being considered for the labor negotiations, Sandra Mack replied that one was Joe Whelan who worked with her at Hinckley Allen and Snyder, another was a referral from Diane Mederos, Bristol Town Administrator.
Ray Palmieri brought up the fact that the Warren Town Council members were against spending any money for software consultants and that he wanted that entered into the minutes. John Jannitto, at that point, produced a letter to that effect that had been sent by the Warren Town Council.

There is an opening for the Distribution Supervisor position at the Water Authority and Ms. Marchand has planned to change that position to Operations Manager. It should be noted that when the original position of Operations Manager was deleted, two employees were given significant raises to take on additional duties. Will these salaries be adjusted when the Operation Manager position is re-created?

Try to get to watch the tape on Sunday or Tuesday. It is very informative.

Thanks to new directors, Bill DeWitt, the public- all who are now working to improve the water company.

Thanks to Bill Rupp for his timely, tireless reporting on the issues.

Mrs. Mack now says there’s no hourly rate?! That’s not what the documents/board minutes show. Once her high hourly rate’s revealed, Mack switches & “bills the budget”?

Over-budget legal bills are not a “write off”. The board increases the budget. See Dec 14, 2011 BCWA Board minutes (Mack was there):

“3... the Executive Director requested that the legal budget for FY12 be increased by $15,000 to cover items for which there was no budget and an additional $15,000 to get through the end of FY12 Fiscal Period (from $60,000 to $90,000). Committee recommends approval. Upon a motion duly made and seconded it was VOTED: To approve an increase of $30,000 in FY12 legal budget from $60,000 to $90,000. Motion passed unanimously.”

Then “the board” paid $5000 additional OVER BUDGET legal expenses to Mrs. Mack?! For what? Jannitto's bogus threats to sue the East Bay Four?

Mack said that the towns would share her legal bill for the B&E audit. Not true.

Maybe next Mack will try to explain what the definition of “is” is.

After Mack’s performance last night (billable?!), all the more reason for an RFP. “Integrity” would be a refreshing criterion.

That new legal policy needs to be revised. It’s bad.

Marchand’s comment on the legal cap issue? Disturbing.

Most certainly some contrary comments made by the Lawyer and then the Finance Director.....someones not on the same page..She says she isn't paid extra but they over spent the account? The Town of Warren works on a flat rate system with their solicitor just like many other municiple agencies, Don't understand why the same can't happen for BCWA, very troubling. First thing is (Stop asking this Gal to do everything other than attorney work) I hope Mrs. Marchand takes a look into this or there is gonna be trouble right from the start. Put it out to bid and you'll see some young and agressive attorney looking for work, perform the job for considerably less than Mack. Guess that leave's only one thing left to do, replace the remaining long term board members with new people asap. Why is it so hard to do whats right for the people.....everythings gotta be a battle. Talk about stubborn......Oh yeah one other thing, where are the certified payrolls for contractual work....? Thats another mistery that no one will ever figure out. Very Sadd.......

I find it amusing, how Mack explains the billing. “not a per hour rate”, ““It is not correct that I charge a certain rate per hour”, what was the story on her lowering her hourly rate from $450 to $350 then in a past story on her fees?

Mack “If it goes over budget, it’s a write-off.” What is this “The BCWA budget for legal fees last year was $90,000, although the board spent about $5,000 more than that, according to Mark Champagne, finance director”, why was the $5,000 not a write off. It sounds to me that write offs are to the ratepayer, if we are going over budget, not Mack writing it off.

Gosselin said: “I don’t want Sandra to defend herself. I don’t want to do that.”, Yea I would not want that either, since there is no reasonable explaination in my opinion on how you can charge $450 per hour, for years and suddenly lower it to $350, and then say you do not bill by the hour. Really do not see how that works? As Hilary Clinton once said, “ it requires a suspension of disbelief”.

Still being the pessimist, when it comes to the BCWA, I also would not allow the former law firm of Hinkley & Allen, who obviously supported and condoned all actions by Mack, well she was there. Just letting the fox back in the hen house in my opinion.

Glad to see the new Board Members on top and pro-active.

It is good to see that it appears to be unanimous that it is simply "best business practice" to go out to bid for professional services. This in no way should be taken as a vote of non-confidence for the person/company that has the bid. It is simply good business! I find it hard to understand why there is any defensive attitude on this. On the matter of the Computer Software/Hardware consulting, I agree totally with Ray Palmieri that it should be re-advertised and there should be three bids. This in no way implies that someone other than Aurora will get the bid. Again, it is starting off our "new and improved" BCWA with consistency and fairness.

I agree Gary, for me it is unbelievable that, there would be an expense of $5,000 dollars, without explaination of who authorized it. It is not like this is some rainy day fund for that amount.

I am also very concerned, when you have a legal fee, that is of that amount and chucked up to overage, wih no explaination. This has allways been the problem with the BCWA on any expenses, half truths, need to know, national security, lost records etc. I really hope this crappola stops soon.

They are either handing out blank checks, or some is writing them. So why no listed expenses like this? What was it for? I realize that to that may be chump change as they say in Washington, but in a small utility, it is far from that and needs to recorded somewhere exactly whatit is for and why the cost increased.

I keep reading over and over what the BWCA doesn't do for the betterment of the rate payers. However, it seems to me that the non changes that people want could
begin if the Warren Town Council removed Mr Jannitto, and then have the BWCA remove Mack. What has Mack got over the Water Authorrity and what does Jannitto have over the council. With all the non answers he gave the council in the past, they still reappointed him.

The remaining old guard have to stick together.

They aren't processing any water. Klepper said so in his May 2012 report.

So they have to make busy work so no one notices that they shouldn't have all those expenses (chemicals, sludge, staff, etc.) for just being a ProvWater distribution system.

It's not like they're doing much other work, either.

They are in the process of union negotiations now. No details on that yet.
It should be interesting to see what kind of a contract comes out of that process.