Metropolitan Utilities District of Omaha - Subdivision 1 Choose 1
6-year term, $13,440 salaryThe Metropolitan Utilities District of Omaha is a public utility that is customer-owned. The district provides public gas and drinking water to Omaha and the surrounding area. The Board of Directors sets rates & ensures water meets or exceeds all state and federal standards for drinking water.
Biographical Information
Education
University of Nebraska at Omaha-Master of Public Administration; Bachelor's degree in Political Science
Current Public Office, dates held
Metropolitan Utilities District Board of Directors-January 2013 to present
How will you assess and prioritize updating infrastructure?
Aging infrastructure will continue to be a challenge at MUD for years to come. The work to replace natural gas infrastructure should be completed in 2027.
On the water side, the goal is to rehabilitate 25 miles in 2025 going forward. MUD is targeting its rehabilitation efforts toward the areas with the highest failure rates, rather than targeting by the age or material of the pipe. Right now, MUD's water main makeup is roughly 37 percent cast iron and 58 percent ductile iron pipe, with a smattering of plastic, steel, concrete and transite (cement pipe mixed with asbestos fibers) making up the difference between the two.
Because the rehabilitation is being done based on risk assessment, the replacement work will be done in stages.
How will you assure the public is involved in the decision-making process at MUD?
MUD operates with transparency for its customer owners for every operational aspect. All of the monthly committee and regular board meetings are livestreamed and saved on the MUD website at mudomaha.com. In addition, the contact information for each board member is available on the website. I have been contacted numerous times throughout my years on the MUD board, and have always taken the views of the MUD customer-owners into account when casting my votes. The greatest value of having public utilities in Nebraska, and the biggest difference with privately-owned utility companies are 1) MUD provides quality services at a lower cost; 2) the accountability for the MUD Board of Directors is to its customer-owners, not shareholders.
What are the most important challenges facing our public utilities, and how do you propose to address them?
The most important challenge will be to continue to be deal with the cost and work dealing with aging infrastructure. With aging infrastructure, the likelihood of main breaks increase. Two ways to address this challenge include 1) shifting from cast iron mains to less expensive and more flexible plastic pipe that won't corrode; 2) Utilizing new techniques/technology such as pipe-bursting, which does not require the concrete to be torn up and disrupt a street and its traffic flow. During pipe bursting, an expansion head is pulled through an existing line, causing the line to break apart. As the expansion head is pulled through the existing line, it also pulls the new pipeline behind it, filling the space left by the previous pipeline.