A feud erupted this week between City of Kemp officials and West Cedar Creek Municipal Utility District Manager Tony Ciardo over the transfer of the city’s water and sewer assets to the utility district.

Kemp voters approved the transfer of the utilities to WCCMUD three years ago following a shutdown of water to residents during a devastating drought in the summer of 2011. The city's loss of water made national television news.

WCCMUD agreed to take over the city’s aging utilities infrastructure, and it built an office in Kemp to manage the operation. The utility's officials began the lengthy process of gaining approval of the agreement by state officials.

The recent dispute arose after the Public Utility Commission of Texas denied WCCMUD’s application to extend Certificate of Convenience and Necessity to include Kemp. The denial letter cited insufficient, incomplete and deficient mapping in the application.

Ciardo advised the WCCMUD’s board of directors that the effort to finalize the agreement with the City of Kemp should be abandoned, according to The Monitor of Cedar Creek Lake. He noted that in addition to the application denial by state officials, the Texas Commission on Environment Quality placed the City of Kemp under “enforcement” after an inspection of the city’s wastewater operations. The “enforcement” status would extend to WCCMUD as well because of its oversight of the city’s utilities if the deal is ever finalized.

“This is a black eye to us,” Ciardo said, according to The Monitor.

Ciardo said the “enforcement” refers to the city utility plants sludge beds and ponding of waste materials. He blamed the failures on city managers who he claimed are not taking care of business. “We’ve been trying to get this thing to happen for two and a half years,” he said. “I can’t keep it up. Going under enforcement is devastating to me. I think we need to pull out of the deal.”

Ciardo said the agreement with the City of Kemp had become problematic and “very, very expensive.” He accused city officials of not caring what happens to the utility systems. “It’s as if they just don’t give a hoot,” he said. “If they don’t care, why should we?”

Ciardo said he would be in favor of only selling water to the city now.

WCCMUD’s board of directors advised their attorney to draft a letter of intent to end the agreement and deliver it to city officials.

Kemp Mayor Laura Hanna Peace said the story in The Monitor shocked city officials, and she released a statement Oct. 27, 2016, after meeting with city staff and the city’s attorney.

The agreement between the City of Kemp and WCCMUD followed a lengthy public debate and many meetings with the utility company’s officials.

“I am very surprised now to hear that West Cedar Creek’s General Manager stated that West Cedar Creek may ‘need to pull out of the deal,’” Peace said in the statement. “The City has spent months waiting for action regarding the Public Utilities application by West Cedar Creek Municipal Utility District and on multiple occasions, we have had our city attorney contact their attorney to determine why there were inexplicably long periods of inactivity by West Cedar Creek.”

Peace said that State of Texas records indicate that on several occasions West Cedar Creek has filed incomplete applications with the applicable state agency to transfer the City’s utilities to West Cedar Creek, and the State has dismissed the applications,

“It is a little disingenuous, I believe, after long periods of unexplained inactivity towards the completion of the required applications to state agencies by West Cedar Creek, they now contend that the City has been the hold up in getting this deal finalized,” Peace said.”

“The City is in the same position now as it was three years ago—we stand ready, willing and able to assist West Cedar Creek MUD in making this deal work,” Peace said.  “We believed three years ago that the agreement was in the best interests of the City and West Cedar Creek, and we continue to believe that. This may be an issue that will have to be addressed by the City with someone other than the general manager. We have absolutely no indication that West Cedar Creek’s board of directors feel anything other than full support for the agreement between the City and West Cedar Creek.”