During a first meeting that was at times contentious, the new board over the Birmingham Water Works adopted a resolution declaring the previous board’s decision to sell its assets to the city of Birmingham invalid, over the objections of two board members appointed by the city’s mayor and council.

A law the governor signed last week required a new, restructured board that reduced the number of members appointed by Birmingham officials from six of nine to two of seven. Other members of the new board were appointed by the governor, lieutenant governor, the Shelby and Blount county commissions and the president of the Jefferson County Commission. The same day the governor signed the law, the previous board voted to accept the city’s purchase offer – a decision the state attorney general later said it did not have the legal authority to make.

“We’re making a statement that we’re going to follow the law,” board member Phillip Wiedmeyer, a Vestavia Hills resident who was appointed by Jefferson County Commission President Jimmie Stephens, said during the meeting Wednesday evening. “We had an action taken by a board that had been dissolved, and we should not stay silent on that. We should stand up and say we’re going to follow the law.”

Jarvis Patton Sr., the mayor’s appointee, asked why the new board needed to act on the matter while it’s being litigated. The city of Birmingham has filed a federal lawsuit to block implementation of the law changing the makeup of the board.

“Why can’t we leave it on the table until the litigation is done?” Patton asked the other board members. “If we don’t approve it, are we following the law? Have we done anything to break the law?”

Board member Jeffery Brumlow, an attorney who was appointed by the Shelby County Commission and who made the motion to adopt the resolution, answered “no.”

“I also want to be on the record that we are going to read the law, study the law and follow the law, and what happened with that contract was not in accordance with the law,” Brumlow continued.

Patton said he wasn’t saying he takes a different position. “I’m saying let the courts decide,” he said. “We don’t have to bear that cross.”

The motion was approved in a 5-2 vote, with Patton and Sheila Tyson, the council’s appointee, voting against it.

New Meeting Schedule Adopted

In other actions, the new board set its regular meeting dates as the first and third Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m., with public work sessions at 6 p.m. on Thursdays preceding meetings. The previous board met on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month at 11:30 a.m.

Instead of holding a board meeting May 19, the board decided to meet for a work session.

The board delayed electing officers and tabled several items on the agenda, with members saying they need time to review documents that were provided at the meeting.

Brumlow made a motion to elect as temporary chairman Tommy Hudson, a Mountain Brook resident whom Gov. Kay Ivey appointed.

In the discussion surrounding officer elections, Patton and Tyson also stood together in arguing for waiting.

“I think we should suspend this for maybe two months, until we look over each other’s resumes and see who’s qualified to sit in these positions,” Tyson said.

Birmingham Water Works attorney Mark Parnell, who was the BWWB’s outside counsel for years before the old board last week hired him to be deputy general manager and general counsel, said BWWB bylaws call for officers to be elected the first time a new board meets, but the motion could be carried over to a subsequent meeting.

In response to a statement that the bylaws no longer exist, Parnell said that while the bylaws are still in force, they must be revised to conform to the new law.

After BWW General Manager Mac Underwood clarified that managers can sign documents and act as the board’s authorized representatives, Brumlow withdrew his motion but said officers need to be elected soon.

The board voted to formally request the Water Works general manager provide each member with: all BWWB policies and procedures currently in force; the most recent, unaudited financial and operating reports; a report on outstanding long-term debt and upcoming debt service obligations; information on all grants the previous board approved during the past years; and a list of all consultants, including attorneys, lobbyists and public-relations firms, and payments made to them during the past two years.

Water Works managers told board members that large white binders on the tables in front of them contained all the requested documents.

Tyson said she would have preferred to table all agenda items and hold an informal meeting in which board members focused on getting to know one another. She questioned how other board members seemed to know more about items on the agenda than she did.

“I just don’t like the way it’s moving,” Tyson said. “It just seems like it’s being rammed down our throats in such a hurry. Why is it such a hurry? The water is not going anywhere. We have time to look at the agenda, look at the items, to make sure that we are voting on things correctly.”

One tabled item involved retroactively approving funds for the emergency purchase of a transformer and for its installation at the Mulberry Intake Station, slated for next week. A transformer failure caused a shut down of the Mulberry Intake Station beginning April 9, making the water system reliant on the Sipsey line, which has a leak, to serve its western filter plant, said Philip King, BWW assistant general manager.

If the Sipsey line ruptures, there would be no way to get water to the western filter plant, Underwood said.

“So we do have some vulnerability of the system,” King said. “So it’s essential that we get this lower intake up and running as soon as possible.

Underwood said the transformer installation will move forward even though the board did not ratify the purchase Wednesday.