Paul DeMarco and JT are live from Biscuit Belly in Hoover

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Paul DeMarco, as we were looking at some things last
week talking about the Birmingham waterworksport now back in the
spotlight again, as if they need more spotlight on them, right,
but this time some legislators are getting involved. And what's
going to be happening for I mean, Paul, good to
see you.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome in good morning, no good day yesterday in Montgomery
with the passage of this bill creating a regional water board.
It's been a long time coming, twenty years in the making,
and so congratulations those legislators that got this done finally
again twenty years of rate increases every single year, problems

(00:36):
with the management of the system. So this is good
for the right payers in our region.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Look, I've always wondered why they're not under the commission,
like the power company is a weak as company.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
And we tried twenty years ago, Representative Carns and I
did and we got shot down, and I was like, okay,
you know what, we just got to fix the entire board.
We can't just do the Public Service Commission.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
You know. And the current setup is Birmingham people were
running this, but they are serving a bigger community than
the Birmingham community, and they did have some representation outside
the Birmingham area, but this changes that a little bit
a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Actually, well, one hundred ninety two thousand rate payers of Birmingham,
but there's eight hundred thousand rate payers, so the majority
are outside the City of Birmingham. Twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen,
myself and Senator Wagner changed the board and added outside
representation because before it was just the City of Birmingham.
So we added representation. But even with that, it didn't
get the changes we need, which was to stop these

(01:34):
annual rate increases. So this legislation again, kudos to Senator
Dan Roberts and Senator chashell Nuts, Senator wagnering Representative Jim
Carnes for getting this legislation done yesterday.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Well, this is about to go to the Governor's desk
and you know once it goes through the process, it
will change. How drastic will it be and what will
those changes be.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Well, you'll have representation from outside of just the City
of Birmingham. The City of Birmingham will have two appointments.
The other appointments will be outside the City of Birmingham.
But most importantly it will require experienced board members, and
again hopefully with these experienced board members, we will not
have the continued rate increases. We will have a competent

(02:14):
board that puts rate payers first, the proofs in the
pudding if we continue to have rate increases. This was
not the fix, but I have confidence that this was
the fix we needed. It's been a long time. Creerent
I myself have been working on it for twenty years. Well,
so congratulations these legislators were getting this done finally.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
You know. And they've hired some new people over the
years recently to try and clean up some things that
were going on internally. Do you anticipate this new structure?
With this new board, there'll be an increased amount of
people that will be on the board, first of all,
and second of all, a bit more of checks and
balances on how things are done.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
That's what we've been needing, and that's what we've talked
about all this time, is there was just never any accountability.
But with the appointment of this board by different governing
authorities who will make these appointments, there will be some
accountability by who's on the board and the way that operate,
and that is the most important. We need a professionally
run utility that puts the right payers for the Birmingham
water Works Board. First.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
All right, well, I appreciate you buddy for coming by tomorrow.
Big day for you is it's a I love homewood day.
You go during the day tomorrow, hopefully cross your fingers
of rain will cooperate with them. And then tomorrow night
I will see you here at the Kaaba Dermatology, Magic
City Wine Fest. Big day tomorrow. Lot's going on after
all the yard work you do in the morning. All right,
Paul Tomarco, thank you, buddy. I appreciate you.