This is an opinion column.

It’s hard to know these days just who the Birmingham Water Works Board’s greatest enemy is.

Those seeking to overthrow it, to snatch control of the state’s largest water utility from the city that once owned it? Or the board itself?

The independent utility, which generated more than $225 million in revenue in 2023 (according to the latest audited annual report available online), has long had thirsty suitors, ravenous predators as persistent (and hapless) as Wile E. Coyote. Every year, it seems to be in the crosshairs of outsiders — legislators from beyond the city limits who drool at the cash cow and look down at the nine-member board of directors with disdain (like some of its customers, alas).

And envy. A majority of the board (six) is appointed by Birmingham, either by the city council (four) or the mayor. The other three seats are filled by the Shelby and Blount county commissions and the Jefferson County Mayors Association.

For now.

The outsiders aren’t even coy anymore: They want to flush the current Water Works board and install their own.

A bill sponsored by Republican Sens. Dan Roberts, R-Mountain Brook, Jabo Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills, and Shay Shelnutt, R-Trussville, was dropped near the end of a calamitous Thursday in Montgomery. The super-majority Republicans muzzled Democrats in the Alabama Senate with a power play that allowed only Republicans to speak on any of the bills on the floor.

The water works bill calls for the board to be wiped clean and reconfigured into a regional board with Birmingham holding sway over just one seat. The president of the Jefferson County Commission and the Alabama lieutenant governor would each make an appointment, as would the two counties with the largest customer bases behind Birmingham.

I haven’t lived here long enough to feel the full breadth of the anger of a city that feels as if something it values — that it owns, at least psychologically — is being stolen from its grasp. Yet again.

I have been here long enough to know this: They’re not wrong.

And still, it’s difficult to fight for holding onto the utility when the board keeps punching itself in the face.

For more than a year, the water works was besieged by a squall of complaints about outrageously high and incorrect bills, horrendously poor customer service and petty public squabbles among board members that made its bi-monthly meetings imminently popcorn-worthy.

While complaints have diminished, board chair Tereshia Huffman told AL.com, and this year’s board is boringly harmonious, it’s easy to squirm at the multiplicity of lawyers that have been under contract, curiously high-priced lake home purchases (though maybe explainable) and the recent re-hiring of former general manager Mac Underwood to his old gig/job/position/post.

Moreover, the recent head-scratching policy change requiring folks to pre-register online to speak at board meetings is simply indefensible.

Public speakers are a critical component of every public board meeting. Typically, they sign up to speak when they arrive and are allowed to speak for three minutes. What they have to say isn’t always nice, pretty or eloquent, but they have their say. The public has its say.

The new water works board policy requires anyone who wants to speak to sign up online within 24 hours of the meeting’s agenda being published. Who knows when that is? I don’t.

I attended the board meeting on Feb. 26 when former board member William Muhammad — who pretty much spoke at every meeting — stood at the mic. Earlier in the meeting, the board had unanimously approved Underwood’s re-hiring. After Huffman read her requisite speaker parameters, which included not targeting comments at specific board members, Muhammad said: “The hiring of the GM without the input of all board members is more of the same unethical behavior that seems to be the case here now, especially when two board members’ terms have expired.” (At the time, two board members were serving past the end of their terms because the appointing bodies they represent had not made a move.)

That seemed to be all Huffman needed to hear. She interrupted Muhammad and called for security to escort him out of the room and the building.

After the meeting, she said: “With this board, we have a standard of professionalism. We have a standard of leading with integrity. And when someone tries to disrupt that integrity, as chair I have a responsibility … to make sure that we keep this place positive. We keep it where it’s not violent and we’re operational on a level of integrity, that we expect from our leadership team.”

Huffman told us she’ll be flexible on the two-minute limit if the speaker addresses “real business that affects their bill or their business. They deserve to be heard. They will be allowed to be heard.”

Okay, but bad policy is a bad look, and the timing’s horrific. When someone’s got you in the crosshairs, don’t shoot yourself in the toe.

It’s difficult to advocate for staving off the outsiders, for preserving Birmingham’s power in the utility and for saving the water works board from extinction when they won’t save themselves.

Let’s be better tomorrow than we are today. My column appears on AL.com, and digital editions of The Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, and Mobile Press-Register. Tell me what you think at [email protected], and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, Instagram @roysj and BlueSky.