Measure 26-156: Not a People’s Utility District

If you’re registered to vote in Oregon, by now you’ve probably received your voter pamphlet for the May 20th election. If you live in Portland, you might have heard or read about Measure 26-156 that will be on the May 20 ballot. CUB’s board elected to take a neutral stance on this matter, so CUB is here to help shed light on this topic! We’ll be releasing a series of informative blogs before May 20th to help prepare voters just like you to make an educated decision on Measure 26-156. You can follow these updates by visiting our Portland Water, Sewer and Wastewater news feed. We’ll also be announcing new posts on our Facebook and Twitter feeds, so follow us on those channels to keep up with our new water and wastewater series!

Some have called the water district proposed for Portland a “Public Utility District” or “People’s Utility District” (PUD for short). These terms, along with a third similar model called a “Water Supply District”, describe what is legally considered a “special district”. Any time a special district is created, it must meet guidelines established in Oregon state law. But that’s not what Measure 26-156 proponents seem to have in mind.

Measure 26-156 is taking a different approach, which means that the public district that would be created if this measure passes would not meet the legal requirements of a special district. This raises concerns for critics of the measure, specifically regarding the issue of board eligibility. Special District law prevents special districts from instating any eligibility requirements beyond a residency requirement. One of the reasons the people’s water district proposed in Measure 26-156 doesn’t qualify as a special district is that it proposes strict conflict-of-interest stipulations, limiting who is eligible to run for the water district board.

The question is whether these candidate eligibility rules will attract the most qualified candidates that will work in the best interests of ratepayers. If eligible candidates must meet restrictive requirements, will the goal of reducing conflicts of interest be met, or are the eligibility restrictions so strict that they limit people with real expertise from running for a new office? Evaluation of these concerns presumably contributed to state law governing public utility and other special districts not allowing the candidate eligibility restrictions proposed in Measure 26-156.

Another potential concern is that in the proposed new utility structure, public water district board members would not be paid. The catch is that these board members would also be barred from holding other jobs. This is the same rule that bans Portland City Council members from taking other jobs. That makes sense when the public official holds a paid position, but the water district board members would be volunteers. Preventing board members from holding a separate paying job places another significant restriction on who could run for the proposed district board.

A final note: many utility districts currently operate across the state of Oregon, and many of them are well run. But this structure doesn’t automatically guarantee good management that benefits ratepayers. For example, The Oregonian has covered the costly infighting and other problems at the Clackamas River Water District. An article published in June 2006 quoted the executive director of the Special Districts Association of Oregon as saying he’d never seen such a dysfunctional district.

In our next blog installment on Friday May 16th, we’ll consider other issues related to electing the water district board proposed in Measure 26-156. Let us know what questions you have about Measure 26-156, or water and wastewater services in general, by contacting Janice Thompson at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)!

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