When Heyburn, Idaho, needed a large sewer rate increase,Ralph Martini went door-to-door in the city of 2,900 people to explain why. In the end, the citizens accepted the reasons and approved a treatment plant upgrade plan that nearly doubled their bills.
“I’m a public servant,” says Martini, who has been with the city’s wastewater treatment plant since 1993. He also sees himself as a servant of the environment. “The public and the city have been very, very supportive of what we do here, including training and conferences, and learning new ways of doing things,” he reports.
He needs that support in a
