Candidates decry water agency’s rate request

Candidates for local office made up nearly half of the people who spoke against the Kent County Water Authority’s rate hike request at a hearing last week before the state Public Utilities Commission.

The Water Authority is seeking a rate increase that would hike annual revenues by $5.2 million, in part for infrastructure improvements.

Nine of the 25 people who attended the hearing spoke. They included state Rep. Patricia A. Serpa, D-West Warwick, and her prospective Republican opponent, Thomas K. Jones, and Town Council candidates Langdon Clough and Stephen D. Murray, the town’s former building official.

“Allow for a much more modest increase,” Serpa urged the PUC. “Rather than allowing a rate increase of 19-25 percent every three years, consider having increases annually in smaller increments. An additional dollar or two a month is more manageable than finding an additional $156 a year or $13 a month.”

Jones demanded that the PUC require the Water Authority to comply with recommendations made by a legislative commission that studied the agency. “If the Kent County Water Authority were to apply the recommendations… they would have no reason to be here to ask for an increase because they’d have plenty of money,” he said.

Murray said the agency had mismanaged its revenues over the years. “It would be outrageous to give one penny to the Kent County Water Authority for any form of infrastructure,” he said. “It would be a cardinal sin and a stab in the back to any citizen taxpayer in the town of West Warwick.”

Clough, who had already submitted a letter for the rate case record, told the PUC that “drastic alternatives” to addressing the agency’s need for money should be evaluated.

“I’d ask you to consider how well [the Water Authority] has achieved its primary mission, which is to provide water to the public,” he said.

Political infighting solves nothing, Bradley says

Tough changes need to be made, but political infighting will not solve any of them, said Vincent D. Bradley, a prospective candidate for the town School Committee.

Bradley, 85, a newcomer to West Warwick, served 20 years on the East Greenwich Town Council followed by four years on that town’s School Committee, until 2006.

He noted the West Warwick schools’ high dropout rates and a fiscal bind that has prompted the School Department to file a $1.4-million lawsuit against the town.

“I see a needed change on the School Committee’s part toward fluid communications, explanations of the what and why of their actions, transparency and trust,” he said. “Such school action will help build future amicable relationships.”

He also said an “accountability project” to ferret out spending that does not align with the School Committee’s mission will be a high priority if he is elected.