While most towns are looking for ways to cut costs and save money, Tilton and Northfield are bucking the trend.
They're planning to buy their local water company.
The towns are following Nashua's lead.
But while Nashua and the Pennichuck Corporation remain mired in a heated legal battle, the lakes region sale looks like it will go smoothly.
New Hampshire Public Radio's David Darman has more.
As Joyce Fulweiler tells it, the owner of the Tilton-Northfield Aqueduct Company came up with the idea to sell the utility to both towns.
Fulweiler is Northfield's town administrator.
all along, mr money, who owns the water company felt that it should be owned by the two communities. so, when the time came that he was thinking about retiring, he approached the boards of selectman in both towns and said, look, i am going to be selling this one day, i really want you guys to be, to have it back, so to speak. :21
It took a meeting of about 70 residents served by the water company to decide to go ahead with the purchase.
They voted to create a village water district.
That entity will make an offer for the utility, and secure the financing to buy it.
Heber Feener is a former Tilton selectman who is one of four commissioners of the new district.
He says the district will be able to secure lower cost financing than a private company can.
Feener says that's an advantage for 950 customers who are getting water from Tilton Northfield.
from what i understand, over an x period of years, whether we agree to take this on, the rates will be low enough so that the water bills will go down to all the users.
Rates may also depend on the price paid for Tilton Northfield.
No price for the company has been set, and district officials won't say how much they are willing to pay for it.
Still, at least one estimate of the company's worth sets the price tag at 7.7 million dollars.
If the district does get the company at a fair price, a spokesman for an association that represents private water companies says ratepayers could still lose out on rates.
Louis Jenney is with the National Association of Water Companies.
the privates are regulated by the public utility commission so their rates are very transparent. its very upfront, virtually all of the income from a drinking water utility comes from their rates, whereas, on a municipal side, income may be coming from other places. ..:19
Customers of Northfield Tilton had other reasons to support a municipal buyout beside low rates.
Pennichuck Corporation of Nashua has expressed an interest in buying Tilton Northfield Aqueduct.
Pennichuck is the state's largest private water company.
And Pennichuck is embroiled in a nasty legal fight with the city of Nashua.
The fight began when Pennichuck officials agreed to sell the company to another corporation partly owned by a French conglomerate.
State and local officials didn't want Nashua's water supply to end up in foreign hands.
But Louis Jenney says that kind of anxiety is groundless.
He points out that privately held water resources are subject to the same regulation as other privately held utilities.
even if a company, if a parent company, happens to be foreign owned its still regulated very heavily on the local level, on the state level, and on the national level. very little is going to actually change in the provision of that water :16
Tilton and Northfield Water District officials say they expect to work out a deal in the next few months for the water company.
But Tilton Northfield's owner has said he's in no rush to get a deal done.
