Water feedback

I got mixed reactions about my water story that ran on Sunday. The story looked at the topic of whether consolidating water districts could make things better for rate payers and more efficient. Feedback ranged from consolidation is a bad idea to keep on putting pressure on water districts to I missed the mark. Here is one letter I got from West Basin employee Joe Walters:

Jennifer,

I read your story in Sunday's paper and I was a little disappointed.

It seems that some of the fine points are missing in the story.

West Basin Municipal Water District and Central Basin Municipal Water
District were never formally merged. They operated as two independent
districts, but had a cost sharing agreement for the facilities and to
share staff. The reasons for the split were never really explored,
leaving some inaccurate impressions. The reasons for the "split"
included the ability to better focus on the different needs of the
populations we represent.

Also, the increase in operating budget is implied to have increased
solely due to the "split" when it is attributable to a variety of
things such as some of the treatment chemicals which have tripled in
price this year. The West Basin operating expense includes items that
Central Basin doesn't purchase since they don't have plant operations.

I would be interested to hear if you get any feedback from the general
public.