New TWSA director plans to empower, challenge staff

By Rose Hooper

With 11 days of on-the-job experience, Montgomery said he has discovered "we have a lot of work together."

"If there weren't much to do, TWSA wouldn't need a director," said the former Pittsboro town manager. "I didn't come up here to just have a position. I came here to take on the job."

Jerry King, director of the authority since is inception in 1992, retired in December.

"Water and sewer, infrastructure - that is my passion," Montgomery said, calling it a "critical part of the economy and health of a community."

Montgomery said he understands the need for a countywide authority "because the issues are too big for each municipality to handle alone." His first task, he said, is "developing an inventory of challenges."

Using the analogy of a large truck terminal, Montgomery said, "Our pipes are like trucks. If you don't have any trucks in the terminal, you can't get anything moved. Our pipes are what we use for transport. When you need to have a steady stream of traffic, or flow in our case, and you only have an 8-inch line from the Cullowhee water plant, it thwarts our transmission, like bottlenecking traffic into a narrow one lane."

"You can't depend on grant sources alone; that limits you when the source dries up... and many of them are drying up rapidly," Montgomery said of one option.

Another option is charging impact fees, but, he noted, "at this time we don't have a lot of capacity to sell."

For an authority with no taxing power, raising fees to generate income is another option, but one Montgomery certainly does not want to consider so early on in his new job.

Borrowing money isn't that easy either, he said, because TWSA's charter requires any expansion investment be paid back in five years.

"That's a tough task, almost unbelievable in a market accustomed to a 15- to 20-year pay back period," said Montgomery, who restructured Pittsboro's long-term debt, saving that town more than $2 million dollars.

"I realize the importance of a smart business plan, and that is what I am developing," said Montgomery, who served as finance and budget officer, as well as town manager, when he worked for the town of Ayden, before moving to Pittsboro.

A master of public administration graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Montgomery said he is committed to "sustainable development and long-range planning."

Part of this plan includes empowering his people, and Montgomery has wasted no time here. While expansion of the Cashiers sewer treatment plant is on hold, awaiting the outcome of an incorporation referendum, Montgomery has challenged the plant operators to submit their own designs for expanding the facility.

"They are the ones who know it best, and they have the skills," he said. "We are just going to use those skills. My job is to give them the tools.

"How we solve our own problems is how successful we will be for the people of Jackson County," he said.

Montgomery, his wife, Sonya, a clinical specialist in child psychology and a nurse practitioner, and their two children recently returned from a "Semester at Sea" aboard the floating campus Universe Explorer. The experience renewed and recharged Montgomery, he said, giving him a greater perspective of the world and opening him to change, which, in turn, prompted his response to TWSA's job advertisement.

"I'm in a transition period right now," he said of his Monday-through-Wednesday work schedule here. Then he makes the five-hour trek to Chatham County to be with his family for an extended weekend. While at home he is getting his house ready to sell and preparing his family for the move to Jackson County.

Back to Archive: 03/27/03.