Despite my best efforts to shed light on the truth about the state of our water system, you are still being lied to. And the accusation that I am the Council member who has made statements that are false, reckless or hypocritical is entirely false. 

The City and Infrastructure Committee/Study Group (see “…Infrastructure” section) have known that we don’t have enough water pressure to put out fires in a large portion of our community for at least 6 years. Yet, the former Council, led by Garrett and Kantor, and Committee, also led by Kantor, chose to ignore this very serious issue and put our lives in danger by focusing only on investment in roads. In 2019 and again in 2020, I advocated for forming a resident committee to take a holistic look at our entire infrastructure system, determine our priorities and then find funding sources –  before any decisions were made. It quickly became obvious they had no interest in doing anything other than paving roads. 

As part of the very first Infrastructure Study Group meeting April 25, 2019, Kantor shared an Initial Agenda with notes to the group – “Water main replacement is currently in the CIP over a 20 year period. However, the City Engineer recommends replacing 15,570 feet as soon as possible. This will help to restore better pressure and fire protection to a large swath of residents.” after this memo from Giffels Webster was sent.

Fast forward to our February 2023 Town Hall… this same group asserted that they had replaced fire hydrants and our only remaining issue was limited access for emergency vehicles, rather than discussing or admitting to concerns about pressure. However, in conversations with the Southfield Fire Chief after the meeting, he confirmed that we do not, in fact, have enough water pressure to put out fires. And whenever I attempt to discuss this issue and the reality of what’s happening in the background, I am shut down and accused of crying wolf. 

We need to mobilize and demand that the safety of our residents is our top priority. This must be addressed with a sustainable solution, and not be solely dependent on a federal grant that we have no guarantee of receiving, which is currently the only proposed option. 

Under the leadership of Garrett and Kantor, we lost $1,778,000 of water - literally down the drain! In the 2017-2018 audit, Plante & Moran found that the City was paying for water from South Oakland County Water Authority that they weren’t billing to customers - $307,000 the first year. The auditors made recommendations to the City but the losses continued in 2018-2019 - $358,000, 2019-2020 - $350,000, 2020-2021 - $427,000, and 2021-2022 - $336,000 for a total loss of $1,787,000! Click here for the Water Loss chart from the 2021-2022 Plante & Moran audit. Each of these losses were noted in the audits and the City was urged to prioritize finding the source of the losses. Garrett and Kantor did nothing to stop the almost $2,000,000 loss - instead Kantor convinced Council to issue a Capital Improvement Bond raising our already high water bills by 22%. I questioned why the City would be asking residents for more money before they identified the source of the 40+% annual water loss and started a petition to put the bond on the ballot. My petition wasn’t successful; our water bills increased; and the water loss continued. In the fall of 2021, resident Bo Tamarelli questioned the huge water losses that he found in the annual audits. The Infrastructure Committee/Study Group led by Kantor thought that the water loss was due to old water meters. They had allocated $860,000 of the Capital Improvement Bond to replace all of the meters in the City. Bo continued to ask questions and studied the life of Neptune water meters. I didn’t believe that all of our water meters would have failed at once to account for the 43% water loss. There had to be another cause. Bo and I continued to research and ask questions. Bo put together a report with his findings that he had to push to present at the 11-22-21 City Council meeting. I filed a F.O.I.A. request 3-31-22 asking for information on what the City had done to identify the source of the loss and what was done to address it - click here for the F.O.I.A. I received no answers. I pushed for Council to spend funds to find the cause of the loss. In the minimum amount of information I received from the Infrastructure F.O.I.A. that I filed, I found an e-mail that Kantor sent after I was elected in November of 2021. Kantor sent the e-mail to Giffels Webster and the City Administrator asking for a list of things that had been done to stem the water loss. Click here for the e-mail. Kantor had no idea what had been done even though he had been the chair of the Infrastructure Committee/Study Group for 2 1/2 years! And as it turned out, there was no list of things that had been done. No one in the City had prioritized finding the source of the huge water loss for 5 years!! If not for Bo Tamarelli’s research on the life of water meters, based on Kantor’s recommendation all of our water meters would have been replaced at a cost of $860,000 and the water loss would have continued! In 2022, Bo Tamarelli again came to the rescue. He discovered water running in the field at the former Southfield-Lathrup High School. A water line that was previously metered was now flowing directly into a drain. This loss could have been discovered if the BS&A Online accounts of the City’s largest customers had been studied. After I spent a couple of hours on the site, I found unusually low meter readings for Southfield-Lathrup High School and Michigan First Credit Union. I told Treasurer and Water Dept. Supervisor Bratschi that but I was ignored. It was later discovered that one of the meters at Michigan First wasn’t hooked into our system and the water going down the drain was discovered at S-L. Bratschi should have realized there was a major drop in revenue; analyzed which accounts had drops in use; and found the source/s of the losses.

The City should strive to protect natural resources such as water. We need to involve our residents in setting priorities and solving our problems. Special thanks to Bo Tamarelli for finding the problem and pushing for a solution!

Plante & Moran Water Loss Chart

F.O.I.A. Request - 40%+ Water Loss

Bo Tamarelli Water Report

11-24-21 Kantor E-Mail Asking What Has Been Done About Water Loss