Earlier this week, Guthrie News Page reached out to the attorneys of Patty Hazlewood and Karen Schandorf, who filed a lawsuit against the City of Guthrie regarding utility rates. On Friday morning, their attorney responded with a statement.
Last week at the polls, voters said yes (783-529) on the ballot to change the City’s charter, which would allow registered voters inside the city limits to decide if rate increases were necessary or not for utilities and away from the City. However, city officials said the city council does not enact water and sewer increases, but rather the Guthrie Public Works Authority (GPWA) does. Related article: Editorial: Let’s break down Hazlewood versus City of Guthrie
City Manager Bruce Johnson said, “Guthrie Public Works Authority and the City of Guthrie are two distinct legal entities with two different areas of responsibility. The City of Guthrie is responsible for more purely governmental services (i.e. police, fire, ems, streets, parks, etc.) and the GPWA is an enterprise trust more closely related to business type services (i.e. water, sewer and sanitation).” Related article: Did last week’s election on future utility rate increases really determine an outcome?
Attorney Chris Harper, who represents Guthrie residents Hazlewood and Schandorf responded by saying, “While the courts have ruled that the City of Guthrie and the Guthrie Public Works Authority are separate entities, no court has ruled that the City can ignore the will of the people and the law as expressed in the newly-amended City Charter. These entities are so separate that the City Council, not the GPWA, voted to have the GPWA improperly sue my clients, and both times the suits were thrown out.”
Harper says the City charter governs setting utility rates.
“The City Charter governs utilities and the setting of utility rates, and the City cannot thwart the people’s right to change the law on those issues through the initiative process by farming out functions to a public trust which the City created, of which the City is the beneficiary, and which the City controls,” Harper said.
The GPWA is made up of seven trustees, which are the same exact seven elected officials who sit on the city council.
“The City of Guthrie does not enact water and sewer rate increases,” Johnson said. “Guthrie Public Works Authority is the entity that enacts water and sewer rate increases. It is the City’s and GPWA’s belief that the Guthrie Public Works Authority has every right under Oklahoma State Statutes to continue to set utility rates in order to have the highest quality of services to the customers of GPWA.”
Harper says the City is not responding to it’s citizens and that the ongoing fight in court will continue as it has since 2009.
“The City’s recent statements on this issue demonstrate its continuing disregard for the people of the City and their will as expressed at the ballot box. Should the City of Guthrie attempt to raise utility rates without a vote of the people, as required by the City Charter, they will simply be creating more litigation and continuing to show that they do not respect their constituents or the law.”
“Their refusal to place the petition on the ballot when it was submitted has been determined by the courts to have been totally without foundation,” Harper concluded.
It looks like the taxpayers are the losers here, regardless of which side you are on. These ongoing lawsuits are expensive!