Key aide leaves Water Authority Technical talks with Green Bay, Manitowoc wrap up By Ray Barrington News-Chronicle The Central Brown County Water Authority will go into its final negotiations with Green Bay and Manitowoc without one of its key figures. Michael Parmentier, a liaison to the authority from the Brown County Planning Office, is phasing out his work with the group to concentrate on other duties at the department, he told the organization Wednesday. "It'll surely be done next year - but I've been saying that for the last four years now," he said. Parmentier has been one of the two main spokesmen for the authority, along with whoever the authority president was. He said the planning office's contracts required more and more of his time, which was almost totally taken up with authority duties. "It turns out a lot of this, nobody knows what I do," he said. So he'll be spending the next few weeks giving other authority members information on his different tasks. The authority had written a job description for an executive director, but had never filled the position. "Maybe the time has come to hire somebody to steer the ship," said Cameron McCain of Allouez. The authority is facing February deadlines to have a proposal in order for the state Public Service Commission to set rates for the six community members. Authority president Roy Simonson of De Pere said talks with Green Bay on technical matters were done for now. The lone point of concern had been on whether to use traditional sand filtration or newer membrane filtration. In looking at the matter, the two sides decided the costs of the two systems were not that different that it could not be taken up later. Sand filtration has higher construction costs but lower maintenance costs. That leaves the Green Bay Water Commission free to look at what it might charge any outside customers who would want to share its pipeline to Lake Michigan. The authority's talks with Manitowoc also are continuing, Simonson said, and had reached about the same point, with technical questions cleared up and Manitowoc starting to look at its financial proposal to sell water to the suburban authority.