Logic dictates that the Village of Pinehurst should be an integral part of a proposed countywide water system. It is becoming increasingly apparent, however, that a majority of the Moore County commissioners intend to sell the part of the system that serves Pinehurst to the Village.

If negotiations for a sale go forward, the process should take place in full view of the public. Other parties who might be interested in acquiring the system should be given an opportunity to bid on it, and the sale price should reflect the system’s fair market value.

Moreover, if the system is ultimately sold to the Village, a condition of the transaction should be that Moore County or any other water supplier would be allowed to deliver water through the Pinehurst system to municipalities and private interests in the area surrounding Pinehurst. Southern Pines, for example, should be permitted to use the system to provide, say, Taylortown with water.

The county will assume ownership of the system with the October demise of the Moore Water and Sewer Authority, which the commissioners recently voted to dissolve. The Pinehurst Village Council is anxious to make the system a municipal utility and has named a three-member negotiating team to hold talks with county officials regarding a purchase. Some concern has been expressed that the Village would use its control of the system as a means of halting development and economic growth in the area by denying the availability of water. Village officials flatly deny that, saying they would expand the system’s capacity as a means of promoting economic growth.

Once the county becomes the owner of the water system, however briefly, every taxpayer in Moore becomes a stockholder in it. For that reason alone, those taxpayers have the right to all information regarding the progress of any negotiations pertaining to a sale. Discussions between county and village officials about a matter of significant public interest must not be held in private.

The same reasoning dictates that the sale be opened to competitive bidding by parties other than the Village. Open competition is the best means of ensuring that the system is sold at the highest price. The county shouldn’t automatically sell the system to the highest bidder –– but to the highest responsible bidder. Such an approach would protect the economic interests of the county’s taxpayers and the interests of water users in the Pinehurst area.

The system should be sold –– regardless of who buys it –– for its true market value. The county should offer no sweetheart financial deal to the Village or any other buyer. To do that would shortchange the taxpayers and force the county’s taxpayers to subsidize affluent water customers in Pinehurst.

It is somewhat reassuring that Village officials insist they would not use their ownership of the water system to slow economic growth. Still, any sale should take place on the condition that a water supplier would be able to deliver water to customers in the area surrounding Pinehurst in the event the Village refused to do so.

Irresponsible development could still be prevented by the county’s –– and Pinehurst’s –– enforcement of land-use regulations. In the event that an anti-growth faction took control of the Village Council, that faction should not have the ability to bring growth in that part of southern Moore County to a halt by its refusal to make water available.

There is a valid argument to be made for a municipality’s ownership of the water system that serves its residents. But if such ownership is to be transferred in this case to the Village of Pinehurst, such a transaction must take place in public, it should be consummated for a fair price, and it should include conditions that are in keeping with sound economic and land-use policy.