Source: By SUSAN SWARD, New York Times, December 4, 2009
Pam Welsh was a retired risk management analyst immersed in her family's life when she learned this year that her Marin County bedroom community was considering a contract to have the world's largest water company operate the local sewage plant.
...... Her campaign, which included a petition drive, was met with a strong counterattack by the Novato Sanitary District board and others who prefer private-sector management. It is a timely subject of debate in the Bay Area, where communities have been wrestling with the broader question of whether private-public partnerships in municipal services make financial and environmental sense during tough economic times.
..... In 2002, the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, issued a report noting that any community needed to monitor and enforce contract provisions. "No matter how well a privatization arrangement is crafted," it said, the public agency's interests seldom matched those of the contractor.


