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Unaccustomed Spotlight For Hudson Water Works

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By Carl  Orth | The Suncoast News

Published: January 16, 2008

HUDSON, Fla. - HUDSON, Fla. - Unaccustomed spotlight on Hudson Water Works

For some 30 years the Hudson Water Works has operated in relative obscurity.

That could change Friday afternoon when the small, nonprofit utility cooperative, which supplies drinking water to about 6,700 people in the Hudson area, holds its annual meeting and election of directors.

A new group, Coalition of Concerned Hudson Water Works Members, is fielding its own candidates, Joan Pajerski and Len Punstinen. Incumbents on the board who face re-election are Bill Kramer, Roy Sibley and Marie Flick.

"I am doing this to bring Hudson Water Works back to the Hudson people," Pajerski said in a statement. "Right now it is a closed community just for a few."

During the annual meeting coalition members might raise questions about management of the cooperative.

Durwood Horak, the water works' utilities director, said late last week he hadn't heard about the coalition. He has been with the utility for five years.

"We're strictly (drinking) water," Horak said about the utility, which often gets confused with the for-profit Hudson Utilities, which provided waste-water service.

At Hudson Water Works, fee revenue goes back into the company to be invested in well fields, maintenance of pumps, storage tanks and other projects

The water cooperative is rather unique because neither the county nor Florida Public Service Commission can exercise any regulatory power over the nonprofit utility, according to Craig McCart.

McCart, a longtime Hudson-area community leader, has been the volunteer president of the Hudson Water Works board of directors for 30 years. The seven directors provide the only oversight for Hudson Water Works' paid staff of seven.

"I encourage people to get involved in the water works," McCart said, including the board election. "There are years we can't get people to run."

McCart acknowledged some people might be unhappy about the water works relocating its offices last year from Old Dixie Highway to New York Avenue.

A lot of water works customers like to pay bills in person, McCart observed. The office used to have walk-in traffic and a slot in the door to drop off bills after office hours. Some customers might be unhappy having to drive across U.S. 19, he speculated.

Following the move to New York Avenue, the office no longer is in a flood zone, McCart stressed. The former office on Old Dixie Highway was inundated during the March 1993 coastal flooding emergency.

Also the New York Avenue site, next to the Hudson Water Works well fields, had more room to expand and accommodate amenities such as a drive-through window.

Liz Marinelli is one of the Hudson Water Works critics. She operates a small shopping center on Joliet Street, at U.S. 19 north of New York Avenue. The five-unit center has a single master meter.

In March 2006 she received a letter signed by Horak. Because of an oversight, the water works had been billing her for only one minimum base charge instead of five base charges, one for each unit, the letter stated.

Marinelli inquired about replacing the lone master meter with meters for each of the five units.

A letter she received Dec. 6, 2006, from Hudson Water Works said installing four more ¾-inch meters, to provide a meter for each of her five units, would cost Marinelli $9,800.

In the interview last week, Horak said Hudson Water Works would not charge Marinelli a $1,500 capacity fee on the four additional meters. This would reduce the cost of the extra meters by $6,000, he said.

"People once they find out they are out of compliance with rules and regulations, they get upset," McCart commented.

"That's basic, fair and equitable practices in the utility business," McCart said about commercial billing for each tenant in a shopping center.

Club Wildwood, a seniors-only, manufactured-home community Hudson Water Works services also has only a single master meter, Horak noted. The community of some 477 units is charged a base facility charge for each lot.

The residential base charge residential is $8.50 a month per unit and the monthly commercial base facility charge is $18.75 a unit, plus the charge for however many gallons are used, Horak explained.

Typically landlords simply pass along the charges to tenants, Horak said.

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