LCUB

“I think the public hearing is going to be set on the same date, which is going to be Nov. 14, I think we got put on our calendar,” Shannon Littleton, LCUB general manager, said. “We’re still going to stick with the first week of December of consolidation. ... I think the front-end stuff just got pushed a little bit more because the lawyers are working a little bit more on the final language of what it’s supposed to look like.”

The Nov. 14 public hearing is subject to change, Littleton said.

Hopes are to have the document in Martel board members’ hands within a couple weeks, Mark White, Martel board member, said.

“Essentially right now LCUB’s working with us on it, it’s just that their attorney is putting the stuff together and then they have send that to our attorney, and then our attorney bounced those questions off like we had today to the comptroller’s office,” White said. “‘Can we do this? Is this something we should be doing?’ So we’re asking every question to the comptroller’s office. ‘Is it OK if we do this?’”

Martel board members met again Sept. 24.

Attorneys for both sides are working on several items.

“One is obviously the calendar, which I think is set,” Littleton said. “The second thing is that the consolidation agreement I would say is all but finished, but there’s got to be ordinances passed by the city that our attorneys are currently working on that is not completed yet that has got to be sent to city council to create a new department in the city, which is a totally separate document than the consolidation agreement. As part of the consolidation, we are not going to put into the document that we’re going to accept one of the employees from Martel as an employee. In the consolidation agreement (it) is essentially going to come in the form of a job offer.”

Littleton said the new group won’t be a full-fledged department.

“Under the law it’s technically not a merger, it’s called a consolidation, and under the law there has to be a new water department under the city’s umbrella of departments, which will be a newly created water department for Martel Utility District and in a specified time — and I think that’s a little bit open — it’ll be merged with the remainder of the LCUB water department,” he said. “It’s just a procedure under law that it doesn’t automatically merge in the utility’s water department.”

White understands the process takes time and wants to ensure it’s done right.

“I don’t want to screw this up — none of us do,” he said. “So all we’re trying to do is make sure that everything we do the comptroller is OK with, that we’re doing everything by state regulations.”