Why I Voted No on the Sewer Sale

If for some unknown reason you ever found yourself wondering what Alexander Hamilton would do if he had some serious thoughts about a public issue in 2020… I think writing out a 10-part blog post might be it…

I’m about to get vulnerable with you all in ways I don’t think I’ve seen from any elected official, ever. It’ll be okay. I hope.

To be honest, I almost didn’t post this because I did the thing where I imagine all of the things that could go wrong if I did. But, I’m also a bit of a policy nerd, and I actually would love if more representatives gave complex, thoughtful reasoning behind their voting decisions.

It is in that spirit that I offer this as a true exercise in the transparency of your representative’s decision-making process.

Table of Contents

• The Short Version
• My Council Colleagues
• Weaponizing Fear and Uncertainty
• Public Participation
• The First Amendment and Your Representatives
• Equity
• The Principal-Agent Problem
• Why I Voted No
• Norristown’s Future
• Conclusion

The Short Version

I’m pretty sure exactly zero of you want to read 4600 words about a sewer system (although I truly think the full version is better than the short version). For those of you who don’t want to read the whole essay, I’ll try to recap each point briefly. It’s still not the shortest thought ever… but complex ideas deserve complex thought.

1 My council colleagues: People are people are people and it is very easy while we’re all virtual to throw names around on the internet and forget that we’re dealing with actual human beings just trying to get through 2020 in one piece. I have tried my best to walk through this process keeping this in mind.

2 Weaponizing Fear and Uncertainty: You have been presented with scarcity (the sewer system is catastrophically deficient), delivered certainty with easy answers (sell it), and given a common enemy to blame (the Norristown Municipal Waste Authority). This is an easy story to weave… but what if we recognized this as a cheap trick and took the time to evaluate the narrative?

3 Public Participation: As your representative in a representative democracy, I am representing your interests and working for your wellbeing. But truthfully, public participation in local government can often be scarce and sometimes entirely nonexistent. Not this time! I think the public spoke pretty clearly about this issue, and I believe I have the responsibility to listen to it.

4 The First Amendment and Your Representatives: When representatives listen to their constituents, we do more than extend a common courtesy; we give credence and power to our first Constitutional right. We give dignity and agency to others when we enable their voices, consider their perspectives, and thoughtfully grapple with their ideas. We participate between the ongoing exchange between the people that defines and sustains our democracy.

5 Equity: More than one in four families (specifically, those raising kids) in the Montgomery County are left with just $30 per week after paying for the basics alone. A family with a $50,000 income — according to a PCCY report — has about $48,430 in basic costs. Norristown has an average household income of $45,754. Do I really want to be part of a decision to force the average Norristown family to grapple with difficult decisions between higher utility bills and basic needs? No.

6 The Principal Agent Problem: You do not typically observe the inner workings of the Norristown Municipal Waste Authority (NMWA). But, you do have accountability because the NMWA board members are community members, you can attend their public meetings and go to their offices, and you can use your vote to hold Municipal Council accountable for appointing responsible board members. What if the Norristown sewer system is privately owned and operated? These local measures go away, and accountability gets harder.

7 Why I Voted No: When it comes down to it, I really think there were three key reasons I voted against the sale: research on other sales, missing math and math that won’t work, and public participation (but has its own section already).

8 Norristown’s Future: Boiling everything down to whether or not this sale takes place cheapens the hard work that has been ongoing in Norristown. So, let’s be clear: the residents of Norristown deserve good things and a high quality of life regardless of who owns their sewer, and the Municipality of Norristown is dedicated and will remain dedicated to that work.

9 Conclusion: What you have before you (if you read this whole thing) is the decision-making process of a person who clearly thinks too much. It’s a flaw and a strength, and today I’m embracing it. To wrap up, I want to push this conversation a little further than just the context of one isolated sewer sale.

My Council Colleagues

I just want to take this moment here, in the beginning, to say that I think and I hope that all seven members of Norristown Council want what’s best for Norristown. What I think has happened in this particular instance is that we might disagree with the particulars of what that is, how to get there, and some of the facts before us.

And facts are hard these days, folks! I could say “grass is green” and somebody will give me a lecture on why this is fundamentally untrue. Both sides of the sewer debate believe their view is absolute, that their stance is fact (I am not innocent in this). In my experience, this has made productive dialogue difficult, much like the broader political state of the country. From my perspective, the virtual environment made it even more challenging.

I don’t think all of this particularly exonerates anyone. After all, we still have to live with the consequences. In The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens writes, “Those who willed the means and wished the ends are not absolved from guilt by the refusal of reality to match their schemes.”

But, people are people are people and it is very easy while we’re all virtual to throw names around on the internet and forget that we’re dealing with actual human beings just trying to get through 2020 in one piece. I have tried my best to walk through this process keeping this in mind by being a fierce advocate for my position without name-checking, personally calling out, or personally attacking any other member of the Council body. It’s not how I roll.

Weaponizing Fear and Uncertainty

This will be the longest block quote you’ll ever be subjected to on the internet (probably), but I pinky promise it’s worth the read. It is an excerpt from Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead. I find myself turning and returning to Brené every time I sit with a moral or ethical leadership dilemma. The whole book is worth the read.

Armored Leadership
Weaponizing Fear and Uncertainty

In times of uncertainty, it is common for leaders to leverage fear and then weaponize it to their advantage. Unfortunately, it’s been an easy formula throughout history — in politics, religion, and business — that if you can keep people afraid, and give them an enemy who is responsible for their fear, you can get people to do just about anything. This is the playbook for authoritarian leaders here and around the globe.

In the short term it’s relatively easy for leaders to stir up scarcity and promise to deliver more certainty with easy answers and a common enemy to blame. But in the face of complex problems, that certainty is quite literally impossible to fulfill. Daring and ethical leaders fight against this brand of leadership.

Daring Leadership
Acknowledging, Naming, and Normalizing Collective Fear and Uncertainty

In the midst of uncertainty and fear, leaders have an ethical responsibility to hold their people in discomfort — to acknowledge the tumult but not fan it, to share information and not inflate or fake it. Daring leaders acknowledge, name, and normalize discord and difference without fueling divisiveness or benefiting from it.

When we are managing from a time of scarcity or deep uncertainty, it is imperative that we embrace the uncertainty. We need to tell our teams that we will share as much as we’re able when we’re able. We need to be available to fact-check the stories that our team members might be making up, because in scarcity we invent worst-case scenarios. We need to open up the room for rumbling around vulnerability.

There is incredible relief and power in naming and normalizing fear and uncertainty. We have to find the courage to look back at the people who are looking at us for leadership and say, “This is difficult. There are no simple answers. There is pain and fear that would be easy to unload on others — but that would be unfair and out of our integrity. We will walk through this in a way that makes us feel proud. It will be hard, but we will do it together.”

Well, friends, this is difficult.

But, I believe in the Norristown community’s collective ability to handle difficult (we’re a tough bunch!) and process a difficult decision with all of the facts, rather than a public relations campaign. From my perception, though, it seems like much of the public material and meetings used the Armored Leadership tactic above to try and convince you that the current state of the sewer system is catastrophic and because of that all future improvements to Norristown are virtually impossible. You have been presented with scarcity (the sewer system is catastrophically deficient), delivered certainty with easy answers (sell it and rake in the sale proceeds), and given a common enemy to blame (the Norristown Municipal Waste Authority).

Friends, I don’t know with certainty what will happen if the sewer system is sold. Nobody does. Remember our Brené above: “in the face of complex problems, that certainty is quite literally impossible to fulfill.” So, instead of promising you boundless possibilities and a quick-fix to all of Norristown’s longstanding challenges, let me hold you in this uncertainty for a moment. If we fact-check the worst-case scenarios and the magic fixes, is the sale worth it?

For me, the answer was no.

Public Participation

When I was a political science student in in first-year American Politics 101, I learned about two basic governing philosophies of elected officials:

1. Representatives who believe they serve in government to vote by the will of their people.
2. Representatives who believe they serve in government to vote their own will on behalf of the people.

In the first group, representatives primarily vote based on what their citizens want. In the second group, the representative believes they represent their citizens best by knowing best. I didn’t have any desire to ever be an elected official at that time, so I didn’t really think about what my philosophy would be, but I thought about the kind of representative I would want to have.

There has never been an instance in which I have really wanted something of my representatives and they have decided differently and I reacted by thinking ‘yeah, I bet they knew better than me anyway.’ Have you? It doesn’t happen.

Frankly, if more government representatives weighed their constituents’ beliefs more in their decision-making we might all be a little better off, since public opinion consistently shows support for things like better school funding, stricter gun regulation, infrastructure investments, and paid parental leave.

Truthfully, the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. We are called to listen and lead.

In this instance, the public was loud and clear across pretty much every demographic and across the political spectrum. Particularly striking, there was activism by individuals who have never been politically involved at all until now. A side note to these individuals particularly: as a young person involved in her community, I truly hope that you stay involved long beyond this particular issue.

This is the single issue that has had the most public participation since I have been on Norristown Council. Over two thousand people have been involved in some way, and I have personally heard from hundreds. Not one of these instances was from somebody who really strongly believed the sewer should be sold, but most of them really strongly believed it shouldn’t. If I were the constituent, I would expect my representatives to listen the public on an issue like this. As a representative, how could I not?

I’m not naïve enough to think there is never an instance where we must make a difficult and unpopular decision. Council members are also a trustee of the Municipality. Sometimes an issue presents nearly irreconcilable conflicts among these responsibilities, and we cannot possibly always please everybody. I’m not convinced that this had to be one of those necessary, difficult, and unpopular decisions.

The First Amendment and Your Representatives

In Frederick Douglass’ “A Plea for Free Speech in Boston”, he declared:

No right was deemed by the fathers of the Government more sacred than the right of speech. It was in their eyes, as in the eyes of all thoughtful men, the great moral renovator of society and government.

The great moral renovator. That phrase suggests free speech gives us the tool to repair, update, and improve our society and its principles, the way one might consider rebuilding a home. We can address damages, tear down harmful walls, open new doors, and even restore a crumbling foundation.

Without freedom of speech, there is no women’s suffrage, no March on Washington, no marriage equality or Black Lives Matter or #MeToo movement.

Frederick Douglass also called free speech the “dread of tyrants”. Because for our freedom of speech to work — to have meaning or the power to improve our democracy — those with power also must have the responsibility to listen.

If elected officials do not consider the opinions of their constituents, then our political speech does little to advance our interests. Without the backing of legislators who listened, there is no Nineteenth Amendment, no Civil Rights Act, and six out of seven members of Norristown Council would not have the right to vote.

When representatives listen to their constituents, we do more than extend a common courtesy; we give credence and power to our first Constitutional right. We give dignity and agency to others when we enable their voices, consider their perspectives, and thoughtfully grapple with their ideas. We participate between the ongoing exchange between the people that defines and sustains our democracy.

I know, I know… you’re probably thinking calm down! It’s a just a sewer! To that I say: when we allow ourselves to disrespect this process in small ways, it becomes easier to accept it in big ways.

Equity

Public Citizens for Children & Youth (PCCY)’s 2019 report Underwater: What’s Sinking Families in Montgomery County shows that more than one in four families (specifically, those raising kids) in the county are left with just $30 per week after paying for the basics alone. A family with a $50,000 income — according to the report — has about $48,430 in basic costs. This does not include items like clothes, haircuts, or school supplies. The report goes on to say:

Every one of those purchases becomes a big decision, a choice of whether to provide their children with something that children in America have come to expect […] Or, perhaps they will forego a bill instead — a missed utility payment, for instance, or a skipped dental treatment. (PCCY 2017, p.9)

Norristown has an average household income of $45,754. Do I really want to be part of a decision to force average Norristown families to grapple with more decisions like the one described by PCCY? No.

But, decisions like this are not necessarily uncommon. And they’re not isolated. When making decisions for a community with a 21.7% poverty rate, I believe I have a duty to consider any structural economic effects on a vulnerable fifth of my constituents.

There are (at least) two structural economic inequality components at play here:

1. Decreased income for families: Given the information above, we know that increased utility bills will force average Norristown families to make difficult and uncomfortable choices.
2. Increased socioeconomic segregation: Research on privatization of public services shows that introducing private interests into public services can radically impact access for certain groups. Economists’ supply and demand model accounts for what’s called elasticities. When a price goes up, it disproportionally effects the more inelastic group. You are almost perfectly inelastic in the case of your sewer provider because you don’t have a choice in who your provider is unless you have the means and resources to move. A small scale example: the Philadelphia soda tax disproportionately effected lower-income Philadelphians because they had less access to go somewhere else to buy sweetened beverages. Economics says that people who can easily avoid dramatically higher charges will do so, leaving behind the people who don’t have any other option.

Elected officials should consider the lasting effects of our policy decisions on all of our residents, and particularly the residents any potential decision of ours could hurt. It’s easy for us to recognize the structural and systematic inequalities perpetuated by previous governments, but we rarely believe we are creating systematic inequalities when we vote on any given item. If we started deliberately thinking about equity in every decision we make, rather than when it’s explicit or when it’s popular, we have the power to stop a worsening structural economic inequality problem in its tracks.

The Principal-Agent Problem

The principal-agent problem occurs when one person or entity (the agent) takes actions on behalf of another (the principal) and the actions and effort of the agent is not perfectly observable.

How do we know what’s going on? How do we know we’re receiving quality services? How do we fix the principal-agent problem?

1. Incentives: tie the agent’s compensation to a performance measure
2. Accountability: closely monitor effort or actions of the agent

The sewer system has a principal-agent problem. You (the principal) do not typically observe the inner workings of the Norristown Municipal Waste Authority (NMWA) (the agent). But, you do have accountability because the NMWA board members are community members, you can attend their public meetings and go to their offices, and you can use your vote to hold Municipal Council accountable for appointing responsible board members.

What if the Norristown sewer system is privately owned and operated? These local measures go away, and accountability gets harder. On top of this, it’s less clear who the principal is, because now there’s shareholders, other communities, and a whole other company’s interests at stake in addition to yours.

Why I Voted No

Obviously, all of the reasons above factored into my reason to vote no on the sale of the Norristown sewer system. I won’t get back into all of them here… this is a long essay, but it isn’t needlessly long!

Throughout the entirety of the exploratory and bidding process, I genuinely listened in good faith to our consultants, read the materials given to me, and open-mindedly met the prospective buyer. As always, if I feel like I still don’t have enough information, I started asking questions and doing my own research.

Research on Other Sales

Our consultants presented us with several new sales in the area. Many of the residents in those communities had started to see the effects of the sale proceeds, but had yet to experience any rate changes. What would happen if I looked a little further back?

Over the first ten years of a sale:

• Bensalem experienced an after-sale bill increase of $458.64 and a 10-year increase of 438%.
• Bristol experienced an after-sale bill increase of $525.15 and a 10-year increase of 439%.
• Coatesville experienced an after-sale bill increase of $407.78 and a 10-year increase of 85%. In the 10th year of the sale, there was a 229% proposed increase. Coatesville spent $40,000 in legal fees to challenge it, ultimately settling for a four-year phase in that would bring the typical annual bill to $1,041.
• Media experienced an after-sale bill increase of $540.14 and a 10-year increase of 233%.

Missing Math and Math that Doesn’t Work

Disclaimer: I’m a massive policy nerd and avidly curious about how the world works. I have a lot of questions, and I dig into them. I have a working knowledge of public economics and have taken more than my fair share of math classes, but a financial background is just something I don’t have.

I’ll start with the missing math. We know that the purchase price is $82 million. After all of the closing costs, legal fees, and paying off of any NMWA debt, we will have about $54 million left. A running list of what could be done with this $54 million includes:

• Sewer rate stabilization
• Property tax relief
• A college scholarship fund for NASD students
• Paying off the debt incurred for the Municipal Hall Renovation
• Recreation Center expansion
• Equipment replacement and capital improvements at municipal parks
• A municipal vehicle replacement program
• Economic development and blight remediation funding

All good things! But, what we don’t have are any answers to what most of this would look like, how much most of this would cost, exactly what kind of relief you can expect, and whether we can afford to do all of this or some of this with the sale proceeds. The math is missing!

The closest answer I have received is that Middletown Township (Bucks County) still uses their sewer sale proceed fund and they use only the interest on this account. I have also been told multiple times that we could move forward only using the interest on the account, as well.

First, Middletown Township is nothing like Norristown. Their sewer is managed by a regional public-nonprofit system. Middletown Township’s median household income is $90,463, they have a 4.5% poverty rate, an owner-occupied housing rate of 75%, and a median home value of $312,300. Norristown has $45,754, 21.7%, 38%, and $152,300 respectively. None of this means Norristown is bad, but it does mean that financial decisions for Norristown are not like financial decisions in Middletown Township.

But, okay, what would it look like to survive off the interest anyway?

Let’s assume an approximate interest rate of 5% (maybe on the conservative side for a market investment, but we could always end up with a year like 2020 and have significantly lower — or even negative — returns, too).
$54,000,000 x 0.05 = $2,700,000.

Okay, so, any rational market transaction should generate value for us. The costs of the sale to Norristown needs to be less than the $2.7M we would plan to use annually. There’s approximately 10,900 parcels in Norristown (according to the 2019 Building & Codes Enforcement Annual Report), and bills ultimately are expected to go from an average around $30 to around $70.
$70-$30 = $40 monthly increase/parcel
$40/month x 12 months = $480 annual increase/parcel
$480/parcel x 10,900 parcels = $5,232,000

The $5,232,000 annual cost is higher than the $2,700,000 expected interest earnings. The math doesn’t work!

I also ran numerous different scenarios with estimated costs for the bulleted lists above. None of the models with all or most (as in more than 1–3) of the bulleted list of potential uses for the sale proceeds came out with a positive number over a sustained period of time. The one with all of the bulleted items cost $1 billion over a 25-year period. Admittedly, with no concrete financial estimate for most items on the list, I had to use some educated best guesses (remember, the reason I’m doing this is because the math is missing). For context, the cumulative total of the entire Municipality of Norristown general operating budget over the next 25 years would be in the same ballpark if expenses increased at about 3% annually.

I’m going to end this section with the disclaimer I started with: I am not a financial expert. If any of these calculations are incredibly off-base: (1) I am sorry for any potentially misleading information and (2) please correct me — I have not gotten good answers on these questions, which is why I took the math into my own hands.

Norristown’s Future

The list of things that we could do with the sale proceeds is a great list, but it did not spring up suddenly when presented with a big cash payout on the table.

Council and Municipal staff have been working hard for years for these things!

Boiling everything down to whether or not this sale takes place cheapens the hard work of all of these individuals. So, let’s be clear: the residents of Norristown deserve good things and a high quality of life regardless of who owns their sewer, and the Municipality of Norristown is dedicated and will always be dedicated to that work.

Parks and recreation, development, capital improvements, etc. are all currently happening in Norristown right now.

The Norristown Recreation center opened and parks are slowly but surely getting new equipment.

Welcome to the neighborhood Royal Farms! Multiple new mixed-use spaces are in-progress in the downtown area! The Baer Building is expecting some pretty cool new uses! And most notably, there are so many great locally owned businesses in Norristown. We’ve got the best tacos around, internationally award winning spirits, and a darn-cute local coffee shop.

Good things are happening in Norristown and our future is bright.

Please don’t disrespect the hard work of many people over many years in getting us to this point by hinging it on one deal.

Conclusion

What you have before you (if you’ve made it this far) is the decision-making process of a person who clearly thinks too much. It’s a flaw and a strength, and today I’m embracing it.

To wrap up, I want to push this conversation a little further than just the context of one isolated sewer sale:

1. Complex issues deserve people who engage with these topics thoughtfully.
2. You genuinely do have a part in the political process. If it is my responsibility to listen to you, it is your responsibility to speak up and speak out.
3. Neglected water infrastructure is a national problem, not just a Norristown problem, and it will require legislative action beyond Norristown to really get at the heart of the issue.

If we’re honest (and this whole thing has been an incredibly honest outpouring) I have struggled with the appropriateness of continuing to voice opposition to the sewer sale after the final Council vote. When do you accept a majority vote as the democratic process and when do you use the democratic process to push that conversation further?

If you read the Weaponizing Fear & Uncertainty section, you already know that I lean into Brené for tough leadership questions. I think she can help me answer this question, too.

“Daring leaders who live into their values are never silent about hard things.” -Brené Brown