Re: South Germantown Road Closed Due To Water Main Break
Many might recall the frequent disruptive failures of the Tennessee American Water Company over the years that have led a number of community leaders to propose ending the private monopoly by bringing the operation under public ownership. Such initiatives have always sparked an aggressive and expensive public relations response, plus lavish lobbying of elected officials by the New Jersey company that has maintained a grip on this essential commodity since the Civil War.
Expect pain and suffering to continue until Chattanooga summons the political will to make an overdue change.
Ron Littlefield
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Mr. Mayor, what’s in better shape, our privately run water system, or publicly run city streets?
Mike Willingham
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The monopoly held by TAW has bred some problems, for sure. Those problems are to be expected when the service that private companies provide is confused with a public utility. When essential services are sold off to for-profit companies the promised efficiencies never really materialize. This seems logical because the companies are businesses, and businesses are designed to do one thing, and that is to make money. Companies will adjust service levels and re-negotiate contracts because public interest is not their sole purpose. Businesses strive to meet one goal, to maximize profit for their stock holders. The goal of a utility, and a government, is very different.
It has been a few decades since the Regan-inspired utility sell-offs of the 80s. The legislative proponents of that scheme are probably no longer with us, so they can’t rap their foreheads and beg forgiveness and admit to that big fat mistake. It is up to us to recognize that no private company can ever run a public utility with the public interest as its core goal. That is not to say that the people who work at these companies do not try their best and even sacrifice their most. It just means that companies are not designed to do that. No company is. No company will take a financial hit to meet its service goal. That is a utility’s purpose. That is why they are so difficult to run.
A slogan that is still voiced by the financially secure crowd is that “we should run the government like a business.” Really? Governments exist for reasons other than profit. Mr. Littlefield understands that. Deeply. Our police and fire troops and teachers and city and county employees understand that. Running a government as if it were a profit-making venture eventually breaks the government, in every sense.
Businesses need to be run like businesses, and governments need to be run for and run by their people, to serve their people.
Shannon Mikus
