Drivers headed down Parkland Avenue can be forgiven if they catch a whiff of bleach rising from the Water & Sewer Commission’s hilltop headquarters.
The smell might simply be symbolic, an olfactory hint at the troubled relationship between Commission Director Daniel O’Neill and the five-member commission, specifically Commissioner David Ellis.
O’Neill said the commission, prompted by Ellis, overstepped its bounds and waded into the daily management of Lynn’s water supply by insisting chlorine gas be replaced with a liquid treatment substitute.
The switch was billed as a security measure intended to minimize the terrorism risk associated with the gas. But O’Neill said the switch is a $2 million commission expense that could diminish Water & Sewer’s award-winning ability to supply local residents with quality water.
The gas fracas is more than a workplace fight over territory because it involves lots of ratepayer money and accusations of appointed commissioners meddling where they are not wanted.
The commissioners, as O’Neill pointed out, “govern the Commission.” But Water & Sewer is really operated by the commission’s appointing authorities: The mayor and the City Council.
Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy appointed Ellis to the commission in 2011 and, as a former councilor, she can remember when Ellis was a Ward 6 councilor. When it comes to Ellis rubbing people the wrong way, she has made a practice, unlike her mayoral predecessors, of staying out of the commission’s affairs.
Not so former Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr. He waded into the commission’s affairs in 2004, scrapping a contract with a private firm in a move that saw Ellis leave the commission. The late Patrick J. McManus all but took over the commission in the 1990s to create a long-term plan to save ratepayers money.
Big dramatic interventions or reorganizations do not appear to be Kennedy’s style. But it might be time for her to take a closer look at Water & Sewer and ask “who is minding the shop?”
Is O’Neill out of line to complain about commission actions? Is Ellis a chronic boundary overstepper who thinks he knows more than he does? These are important questions for the mayor to ask in conjunction with Council President Daniel Cahill.
With a giant sewer project looming carrying a potential cost to the ratepayers measurable in millions of dollars, Kennedy and Cahill might want to examine the Water & Sewer operations or at least call the principals into a room and get down to brass tacks. No less than the ratepayers’ hard-earned dollars are at stake with the latest tempest atop of Parkland Avenue.