Waukesha Water Utility Has New Attorney On Board

Lawrie Kobza, a water expert from the Boardman Law Firm in Madison, has been working for Waukesha on the city's Great Lakes diversion plan's Compact compliance and related matters since 3/2/2010, at @250/hr., according to records released at tonight's utility commission.

This follows the Waukesha Water Utility pattern of hiring attorneys, consultants, public relations specialists and federal funding experts Madison, Milwaukee, or Washington, DC to assist with the application.

Kobza had also worked on the SEWRPC regional water supply plan.

Here is a link to the chapter she wrote for the study.

Her hiring probably explains some of the delay in the application's completion after the Waukesha Common Council's approved a draft of the application on April 8th., and further suggests that the application was rushed onto the Waukesha Common Council's advance calendar in late March prior to the April 6th general election there.

The application was finally filed today with the DNR, but was not resubmitted to the Waukesha Common Council for another public hearing, or vote.

That procedural disdain by Waukesha makes a shambles out of Wisconsin's Public Trust Doctrine, the guiding principle of water management that is enshrined in the Wisconsin constitution.

Maybe the DNR can brush up on the public trust doctrine by reading its own website on the matter before it reviews the Waukesha application.