Statement from Nick Mortensen
To what extent is the city’s/water utility’s response to the Humboldt Road water main break
acceptable to you?
Simply put: Not Acceptable at all.
At Jones Sign Company (my experience is in private enterprise, so I'm shooting from the hip here),
nothing is ever repaired 4 times. After the third time, we go back to our suppliers and make them
compensate us with new parts - or we dismiss the person who claimed to have done the repairs. If
something isn't repaired properly the first time, it is just broken differently. Something is repaired when
it is unlikely to break again. "Unlikely" to break isn't enough of a fixed mark to anybody we pay
insurance premiums to, so it doesn't work for us at all. If something is considered "likely" to break the
alarm bells have to go off! Drop everything you are doing! Threat detected! Anything less than an allhands on deck scenario just won't suffice. We always consider liability and we do everything possible to
reduce the risk of ever having to deal with liability. It is an obsession.
If there are records of communication about this meeting the threshold for being a "possibility", the city
would be in the wrong. That it was a "likely" would be malpractice in private enterprise. It is dereliction
of duty at the governmental level.
Should the city and/or water utility compensate the affected homeowners for the damage caused by
the water main break? Why or why not?
Absolutely yes. This should be self-evident. From an organizational standpoint, you cannot account for
every possibility, so you do your best and compensate for the rest.
So much has been done around here to instill a culture of accountability. That is a difficult hill to climb,
but you do so to prevent rework because rework is what kills your organization (repairing something 4
times is rework).
There are lots of moving parts in a municipality, so perfection is just not attainable. It should still be your
goal. Compensation has to account for the difference between what you set out to do and what you
accomplish. There seems to be a pretty wide chasm between what the city/water utility set out to do
and what it accomplished. You work to find an acceptable compromise on the number between the
aggrieved parties, the municipality, & all relevant insurance companies.
What ought to be embarrassing is that this problem was diagnosed, but it was not solved. Diagnosis is
the greater part of the equation. I hope there is an autopsy report that can help us avoid a repeat of this
-- but my understanding is that our infrastructure is crumbling so perhaps mitigation is all we can
realistically hope for.
What should the city/water utility do to help homeowners whose properties are damaged by water
main breaks?
Solicit claims. Log each claim separately. Determine appropriate compensation and then offer 70% of it
to the aggrieved parties as an opening. It should really just be a negotiation at that point, so the city can
realistically expect to take a discount of at least what a lawyer would cost to retain by those people

 negatively affected. If the city is able to get more than a retainer's worth of a discount, then that's just
good business.
Additional comment:
This hits close to home for me because it was only 7 years ago that I lost everything I had in a fire:
That fire was a major turning point in my life. I slept over at my girlfriend's house that evening and 6
weeks later we found out we were pregnant. Moved back to Green Bay to raise a family because I
thought the universe had spoken to me. We suffered another gut punch a few months later when we
miscarried. I spent months feeling absolutely lost & depressed. I haven't done comedy since.
These people cannot truly be compensated properly, but the pace at which government works offers a
real advantage here. Most of these people are probably so sure they are going to get fucked on this that
any indication they aren't is going to be met with generosity.
Follow-up response:
I've given your question a bit more thought and I believe it would be important for city lawyers to pretty
plainly establish in some way that they aren't legally responsible* for compensating the victims prior to
offering compensation.
* If at all possible -- Even if it is as specious as establishing that an insurance company is likely to
consider a water main break an "Act of God".