Month: September 2026

Last week, Spicewood News published a detailed analysis of what Texas communities are experiencing after selling their water systems to private‑equity‑owned companies like Aqua Texas and Central States Water Resources. CSWR is the company we allegedly sold our system to (despite the lack of a 2/3s vote of all members necessary to change corporate structure. That will be a future post.)

The Spicewood News post documented statewide evidence from other communities who regret selling out: skyrocketing bills, loss of local control, and rate structures that no longer reflect a community’s actual cost of service.

These were complaints about 200 and 300 percent increases because of volumetric rates, meaning a household using the same amount of water as it previously did suffered 200 to 300 percent billing increase.

As expected, the two NextDoor Trolls in our neighborhood responded —not by addressing any of those facts—but by attacking me personally. That’s how they operate their ongoing con of this neighborhood.

That’s fine. Politics in Windermere Oaks has always had its personalities and the disorder they cause. But personality-driven disorderliness doesn’t change math or the consequences of selling our water system to private equity. So let’s return to the facts.

The Attacks Ignore the Central Issue: Private Equity Eliminates Local Rate Protection

Both commenters avoided the core point of the article: Once WOWSC is sold, Windermere Oaks loses the ability to appeal rates, challenge rate structures, or correct billing inequities. Forever.

Under member ownership, WOWSC could—and did—adjust base rates, correct tier structures, and reduce charges once litigation concluded.

The 2020 board publicly stated, at the time we raised the Base rate 71%, that it was temporary and would be revisited after the lawsuits ended. The plaintiffs, not the board, were in the driver seat on that. Sorgen was a plaintiff in the suit against the company and he could have worked to withdraw the suit then, instead of pursuing it through a jury trial two years and $100s of thousands later, for a whopping $70,000 jury verdict

That possibility — of a local board lowering base rates — disappears the moment Central States Water Resources, a private‑equity backed corporation takes over.

Aqua Texas customers cannot appeal their rates. CSWR customers cannot appeal their rates. Their bills are set by corporate strategy and PUC rate processes, not local cost of service. Customers only have rights during a rate-hike process at the Public Utility Commission. Aqua Texas is doing that right now and has promised it will do so again soon after.

That is the entire point of the original article. And neither commenter addressed it.

Bruce Sorgen’s Attack Omits His Own Role in Creating the Rate Increase He Complains About

Bruce Sorgen wrote that “under Joe’s leadership” there was a 71% increase in the water bill.

What he left out is that he was the plaintiff in the lawsuit that forced WOWSC to raise those rates.

WOWSC had to hire attorneys, respond to filings, and defend itself in court—costs that were directly triggered by Bruce’s litigation. The board explained this repeatedly and stated that once the lawsuits ended, the temporary rate structure would be revisited.

Sorgen’s lawsuit created the cost. The board responded to the cost. And now Bruce is attacking the response to the cost he created.

But again, even this is a distraction from the real issue: Aqua Texas and CSWR do not revisit rates. They raise them. Repeatedly.

Danny Flunker’s Comment Misstates What “81%” Actually Means

Danny Flunker wrote that “81% of the membership voted to sell the co‑op.”

That is not accurate, but what would else would you expect from the Con Man?

81% of the people who showed up or mailed in their ballots voted to sell. That is not the same as 81% of the membership. (I have not even reviewed that number — 81 % — and I have documented many instances where the ConMan uses half-truths and engineered numbers, so we will have to come back to that.)

Anway, WOWSC has about 300 members. Only a fraction of that, maybe half, attended the meeting, or mailed in ballots. IIRC it was only 50% of the membership that actually took the time to vote.

But even if the number were correct, it still wouldn’t change the consequences of the vote:

Selling to private equity eliminates local control and locks the community into permanent, non‑appealable rate structures.

That is the issue. Not who attended a meeting. Not who posted a video. Not who dislikes whom.

The Facts Remain: Communities Across Texas Regret Making This Exact Decision

My original article documented what Aqua Texas customers are telling the Public Utility Commission right now:

• Bills doubling and tripling even when usage goes down.
• Wastewater charges applied to irrigation water that never enters the sewer.
• Rate tiers jumping 60–90% in a single year.
• Customers paying for corporate salaries and infrastructure in other towns.

These are not opinions. These are sworn statements, filed in official PUC proceedings.

And these are the consequences Windermere Oaks voted to adopt. No personal attack on me changes that.

The Bruce Sorgen “Serving on Boards” Con

Bruce Sorgen’s response to last week’s post is another example of how personal attacks are used to distract from the actual policy consequences facing Windermere Oaks.

His NextDoor comment did not address the substance of the article. Instead, he attempted to turn my years of volunteer service into a negative against me. Talk about disorders…

For most people, serving on a neighborhood board—year after year, through difficult issues, litigation, and community conflict—is evidence of care, commitment, and willingness to do the work that keeps a small community functioning. Ordinary homeowners understand this. They know that volunteer governance is often thankless, often difficult, and always necessary.

Bruce frames that service – my 8 years here and 6 years elsewhere – in derision.

Let’s look at his record:

Beyond a brief and tumultuous stint on the Windermere Oaks POA in 2015-16, when he was working with the lead ConMan to exert POA control over the Marina associations—and ending in his resignation—Bruce’s most consequential action in this community has been suing his neighbors, twice.

He lost his first lawsuit seeking to overturn the land sale because of an Open Meetings Act violation, and that cost the WOWSC $100,000, approxmiately.

Then, his second lawsuit produced only a $70,000 jury award at a cost of roughly $2 million in legal fees from all parties, destabilizing the water system and triggering the very rate increase he complained about. (BTW, He also wanted $1 million in damages and penalties from me and others. He didn’t win that either.)

That is his legacy in Windermere Oaks. Lawsuits and quitting. Conning the neighborhood with relentless misinformation campaigns. He sued volunteers, and his lawsuit sought damages from them. Helluva guy he is.

My legacy, by contrast, was years of volunteer governance, years of showing up, years of doing the work required to keep a member‑owned utility functioning. You may disagree with decisions made during those years—that is normal in any community—but the record shows a consistent commitment to service, not self‑interest, not suing volunteers to make them pay you, like Bruce did.

And again, none of this changes the central point:

Selling WOWSC to a private‑equity water corporation eliminates the community’s ability to correct rates, appeal rate structures, or protect itself from corporate billing practices.

That is the issue. Not personalities. Not grudges. Not who dislikes whom.

Windermere Oaks Deserves a Serious Conversation—Not Deflection

The future of this community’s water system is too important to be reduced to personal insults.

The question is simple:

Do Windermere Oaks residents want to pay rates based on their own system’s cost of service—or based on the financial strategy of a private‑equity corporation headquartered in another state?

That is the only question that matters.

And until someone addresses that question, the ad hominem attacks are just noise.

Ad Hominem Attacks that ConMen Employed

In February 2020, while Patti Flunker was busy gathering signatures to protest a WOWSC rate increase—an increase triggered largely because her neighborhood allies had sued the water company in a lawsuit that only secured a $70,000 judgment for the water company, after all parties spent $2 million —she was also working on something far more consequential. She was inviting representatives from Aqua Texas to come into Windermere Oaks and pitch the idea of buying our water system. As she said, “Would love to get you out to the community…“

Many residents remember that Saturday morning at the Pavilion. Aqua Texas showed up, gave their sales pitch, and made their case for why Windermere Oaks should surrender local control and hand our water system over to them. Patti facilitated it. She wanted it. She pushed for it.

Based on what Aqua Texas has since done to communities across Texas, that would have been a disaster for us. I opposed it then, and I oppose the same model now — the one where Patti has had us sell to Central States Water Resources.

I oppose it because what Aqua Texas has done to Texans is documented, measurable, and devastating. And I will prove it below.

But now, by selling WOWSC to Central States Water Resources (CSWR)—a private‑equity water corporation using the same strategy as Aqua Texas —Windermere Oaks has placed itself on the same track as those communities who now deeply regret their decision.

But don’t take my word for it. Look at what Texans are telling the Public Utility Commission right now:

Texans Are Sounding the Alarm — And Windermere Oaks Should Listen

In Fulshear, a homeowner used 21% less water but was billed 50% more. His letter to the PUC reads like a warning from the future: “I USED ALMOST 10,000 LESS GALLONS THIS YEAR AND WAS CHARGED 50% MORE.”

In Spicewood, a resident was billed $420 per month for wastewater—even though 96% of his water was used for irrigation and never entered the sewer system. He was paying sewer fees for water that soaked into the ground.

In Fort Worth, a family documented water‑rate tiers that jumped 66% to 92% in a single year. Their same‑usage bill increased 58% under Aqua Texas’s new structure.

Across Texas, HOAs and community associations are filing formal protests. They describe rate increases that have nothing to do with local costs—rate increases driven entirely by Aqua Texas’s statewide consolidation strategy. Here is just one letter from a small community association:

These communities are not paying for their own water systems anymore. They are paying for Aqua Texas’s entire portfolio, including salaries, attorneys, and executives in Pennsylvania.

This is the model Windermere Oaks just voted to join by selling to Central States Water Resources. By electing the current Board of Directors – or no one running against them, including myself — we are on course for these rates. Prepare yourself. Prepare your budgets.

The Aqua Texas Model: Buy Small Systems, Consolidate Them, Then Raise Rates Across the Board

PUC Rate Case 58124 is the largest Aqua Texas rate case in state history. Aqua Texas is raising rates on more than 75,000 customers across Texas—from Fort Worth to Beaumont, and even our neighbors in Barton Creek Lakeside.

How did they get so many systems under their control? They bought them, or worked with developers to own them. One by one. And once their lobbyists secured the “regionalization” legislation they needed, they went straight for their customers’ wallets.

Now those communities—whose developers sold their water systems to Aqua Texas years ago—are begging the PUC for relief. They are documenting bills that have doubled, tripled, even quadrupled. They are paying for water and wastewater services performed in other towns. They are paying for Aqua Texas’s corporate salaries in Pennsylvania. They are paying for infrastructure they will never see.

Their bills no longer reflect their community’s actual cost of service. They reflect Aqua Texas’s portfolio strategy.

If those communities could buy their systems back and run them themselves, they would. But now Windermere Oaks is in the middle of performing their mistake.

CSWR Uses the Same Model as Aqua Texas — And Patti Flunker Has Led Windermere Oaks Straight Into It

Now Patti Flunker has convinced the neighborhood to sell WOWSC to Central States Water Resources. CSWR is a private‑equity water corporation just like Aqua Texas. It uses the same strategy: buy systems, consolidate them, and eventually charge customers for the overhead of their PE bosses, attorneys, and executives in other states.

CSWR will not answer to Windermere Oaks homeowners. It will answer to investors.

Once WOWSC is rolled into CSWR’s Texas portfolio, our rates will no longer reflect our community’s actual costs. They will reflect CSWR’s statewide strategy.

That is how communities end up with $600 wastewater bills. That is how they end up with $800 wastewater bills. That is how they end up with $1,000 wastewater bills.

Just like Aqua Texas customers are experiencing today.

Windermere Oaks will not be the exception. We will be the next example.

And Where Is the WOWSC Board?

When will the WOWSC Board have its next meeting to consider these issues?

The last meeting was four months ago—in May—just one month after their Sunday‑morning Annual Meeting. Who schedules an Annual Members meeting on a Sunday morning? WOWSC under Patti Flunker. And who attended? Almost no one, I’d guess. I was probably at church.

But I digress.

The point is simple: The board has gone silent. The neighborhood voted to sell its most valuable asset and has yet to see a contract, a valuation, or a fair‑value discussion. It has yet to see a five-year plan, like what my Board would always provide.

The Future Is Already Written — Just Not By Us

Aqua Texas is working hard to make its current rate increase permanent. In PUC testimony, they openly stated they will soon return for yet another rate increase.

CSWR will do the same thing. Case after case. Increase after increase.

It is a shame this community is making this mistake.

Windermere Oaks did not just sell a water system. It sold its independence. It sold its ability to control its own costs. It sold its protection against private‑equity rate structures. It sold the one thing that kept us from becoming the next Fulshear, the next Spicewood, the next Fort Worth.

And someday soon, Windermere Oaks residents will be writing their own letters to the PUC—just like the ones above—except the bills will be from CSWR instead of Aqua Texas. And they won’t do any good. You’re now in the Matrix.

A recent exchange on Nextdoor involving Donna Carpenter‘s response to the ConMan is heartbreaking, and deserves discussion.

Donna’s emotional plea, asking the ConMan (and ConSpouse) why she and her husband Mark are suddenly being targeted by a defamation campaign is part of a long, well‑documented pattern that every Windermere Oaks homeowner should recognize and shun, for the good of the neighborhood.

For years, the ConMan and his ConSpouse have operated in a cycle:

1. Befriend and campaign for someone to serve on one of the neighborhood volunteer boards.
2. Demand absolute loyalty to whatever agenda they are pushing at the moment. (Marina regulations, proxy votes, land sales, road-paving, etc.)
3. Use social media (and behind-the-scenes email campaigns) to denigrate the volunteer when they stop toeing the ConCouple’s agenda.
4. Elevate themselves as defenders against conspiracy-theory corruption.
5. Turn on their own former friends and supporters.
6. Launch public attacks on Nextdoor, YouTube, Facebook, and websites to isolate, shame, or intimidate the former ally.

Donna and Mark Carpenter are simply the latest neighbors caught in this vicious cycle.

A little history: In 2022, Mark and Donna Carpenter had already been pulled into the ConCouple’s orbit. I remember sitting across from Mark in a conference room at the Lloyd Gosselink law offices. He’d come with Jeff Walker and they were seeking resolution of election grievances ginned up by the ConSpouse lodged at the Public Utility Commission.

The conversation made one thing unmistakably clear: Mark and Jeff were fully under the ConCouple’s spell, alleging that I and others had manipulated the elections. It was and still is one of the ConCouple’s favorite con of this neighborhood.

Mark told me, with a straight face, that he had “seen mafia work” in his business dealings and accused me and others of the same. These claims originated in the ConMan’s 2020 letter to the sheriff and the community, accusing me and others of ‘organized crime,’ ‘fraud’ and various criminal conspiracies. That letter was designed to inflame, recruit, and divide. And it worked: Mark repeated those claims verbatim.

After the meeting I invited Mark by email to meet for coffee afterward, to talk neighbor‑to‑neighbor and discuss facts behind all the false allegations. Of course, he never responded. He had already drank the Kool‑Aid and his mind was made up.

(Jeff Walker and I did have discussions afterward, to his credit. He didn’t believe me at the time. In 2024, after serving on the WOWSC Board and witnessing the ConJob first hand, he came around. The ConCouple did their job on him.)

The Inevitable Outcome

And now, years later, Donna’s distressed Nextdoor post shows the inevitable outcome of coming under the ConCouple’s spells: once the ConCouple no longer needs you, once you stop serving their storyline, or once you do something they don’t approve of in service to the community, you become the next target for ongoing defamation efforts.

The Carpenters are not conspirators, despite the ConMan’s insinuations in his recent post. They are victims of the ConCouple’s neighborhood viciousness, just like so many other directors of the water company and property owners’ association before them. They’ve been caught in the same pattern of manipulation, loyalty tests, and public destruction that has defined the ConCouple’s behavior in Windermere for more than a decade.

Every homeowner, especially new ones, should understand this: The ConCouple prey on your ignorance of the past, lack of historical context, and unwillingness to read court documents. They operate through public shaming, selective outrage, and relentless scandal‑mongering. The targets change, but the behavior does not.

Why the ConMan Turned on Them: Who Knows

The ConMan’s recent post about the WOPOA director’s home listing was not a neutral observation. It was the latest campaign in a long series of attacks — a campaign that appears to have begun when Mark Carpenter removed the ConMan’s video camera at a WOPOA meeting. Who knows what caused him to do that, but apparently Mark finally had enough of the video‑shaming the ConMan has used for years against his targets.

And now, after the Carpenters recently put their home on the market, the ConMan swooped in to throw shade, insinuate wrongdoing, and stir up scandal. That is what Donna was responding to, along with whatever private pressure or behind‑the‑scenes messaging the ConCouple may have directed at them. There are always backstories when the ConCouple is involved. It is how they operate.

Donna’s comments indicate as such and clearly show how she and Mark are now in the crossfire. She is confused, hurt, and wondering why she is being picked on at all.

The answer is simple: Once you are no longer useful to the ConCouple’s agenda, you become the next storyline in their never-ending campaigns.

The Human Cost

Donna’s heartfelt comment shows the human cost of the ConCouple’s behavior. It’s nothing new. Neighbors who once trusted the ConCouple eventually discover that trust is a one‑way street. The moment they diverge from the ConCouple’s agendas, they are treated as adversaries.

Windermere Oaks deserves better than this cycle of manufactured outrage and personal destruction. Donna’s reaction is a reminder that these patterns harm real people — and that recognizing the pattern is the first step toward ending it.

Despite their past harshness toward me, I understand exactly what the Carpenters are experiencing now. I’ve seen this pattern claim too many neighbors over too many years, and I know how disorienting and painful it is when the ConCouple turns their machinery of outrage toward you.

I hold no resentment toward Donna or Mark — only empathy. No one in this neighborhood deserves to be dragged through a cycle of manufactured scandal and public shaming.

Windermere Oaks is stronger when we recognize these patterns for what they are, refuse to participate in them, and support the neighbors who find themselves in the crossfire. The Carpenters have my full empathy, and I hope our community offers them the same.