More evidence of regulators up for sale?

Shocking news (not). It appears the Arizona Corporation Commission may be for sale — or some of its members, at least. I know you may find it difficult to believe that our esteemed utility regulators can be bought. Maybe you concluded that their cozy relationship with Arizona Public Service — not to mention their support of a recent rate increase that will reap APS $95 million a year — was built upon mutual respect. That it had nothing to do with the $3.2 million widely believed to have been secretly spent to elect two of the commissioners in 2014 or the $4.2 million openly spent by APS to elect the other three in 2016.

But consider the sudden desire by a pair of commissioners to seize a potentially lucrative territory from one water service provider in order to give it to another — one that just happens to be a campaign contributor.

Republic reporter Ryan Randazzo recently reported Commissioner Boyd Dunn has been spearheading a plan to yank the right to provide water to a couple of planned developments near Casa Grande from Arizona Water Company. Dunn wants to award the territory to Robson Communities, whose executives and their families just happened to donate $23,500 to his 2016 campaign.

Count Commission Chairman Tom Forese in, though he collected only a measly $3,000 in Robson-connected contributions for his upcoming bid to become state treasurer.

Those two and Commissioner Andy Tobin voted in April to force Arizona Water Company to negotiate with Robson for water-service rights of an 11square-mile swath of undeveloped land near Casa Grande.

They are moving along despite the recommendation of the commission staff and an administrative law judge who warned that Arizona Water Company has a vested right to serve that territory and that the commission has no legal authority to take it away.

Arizona Water has had the rights to that land since 2004 and Robson has been trying to grab it since 2005.

Within a month of taking office, Dunn proposed reversing the grant to give it to Robson. Naturally, he says money isn’t the driving force.

“My decision will be based on the law and it will be based on the best interests of the ratepayers,” he told Randazzo.

Much like the curious decision by Boyd and his colleagues to do whatever it takes to stop Commissioner Bob Burns from investigating whether his fellow commissioners were biased in favor of APS when they recently approved a rate hike.

The attempted water territory grab has some of the state’s smaller water companies on edge. They wonder whether they, too, could lose out to competitors who can pour more money into the campaigns of commissioners.

“I would say we are very concerned,” said Jason Williamson, of JW Water Holdings.

I would say he — and we — should be.