Of more Local Interest

The City of Phoenix fired it's chief water official last week. Why? No one is actually sure.

Four weeks ago Mike Gritzuk was reassigned to "other duties," after City managers felt compelled to discipline him for issuing a boiled-water advisory earlier in January. The only indications from the city about Gritzuk's release was this short statement from City manager Frank Fairbanks:

"We simply decided that his services were no longer needed," Fairbanks said.

The details surrounding the boiled-water advisory is a story of bad-timing in convergence with severe weather and poor communication from the department-level to senior members of the city government. The result was an advisory issued in the wee hours of the morning that all residents who received their water from the city should boil their drinking water because the city could not guarantee it's safety. Critics point to facts revealed after the warning showing that in fact the city's water was safe and the advisory completely unwarranted. Read this timeline of events and draw your own conclusions.

Gritzuk received a lot of heat for issuing the advisory. However, he insists that it was the appropriate response to circumstances:

Gritzuk, who until Friday had not commented publicly since his Jan. 28 reassignment, said he feels reaction to the water emergency missed an important point.

"From a water-utility-division point of view, the primary obligation I have is to the consumers we serve," he said.

He defended the 2 a.m. decision to issue the boil-water advisory, saying all the warning signs were screaming out that the city could be delivering unsafe water from its Val Vista Water Treatment Plant."It was no choice," he said. "We had to protect the consumer. I think we did that."

According to the Republic, the city has been making the case about Gritzuk's past performance in his position as Water director and examples of poor communication between Gritzuk and other city officials as justification for his dismissal. In summary as best I can tell, the boiled-water debacle was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I live right on the boundary of Glendale and Phoenix in the Northwest Valley and though my address says "Glendale," I reside on the Phoenix side of the street. As a resident who receives all his essential services from the City of Phoenix, I am more than comfortable with the decision to err on the side of caution if the city cannot guarantee whether or not it's drinking water is safe for residents. I also cannot imagine why anybody else would think otherwise.

In a case where it was certain that the warning would not last beyond a relatively short period of time, the risks of not acting outweigh the frustration of Starbucks customers without coffee.