One of the most fundamental duties of local government is to provide its citizens with clean water. Whether it is for drinking, showering, washing clothes or for a myriad of other uses, residents should have no qualms about the safety of the water coming out of their faucets.

In a day and age when almost every aspect of life is politicized, clean water is one of the few remaining things that transcends partisanship and political maneuvering and acts as a cornerstone on which the rest of government, no matter how disheveled, can rest stably upon.

Or at least that’s how it should be.

Some of Meridian’s elected officials seemed to have different ideas during Tuesday’s council meeting, when a proposed contract to bring in Waggoner Engineering to help alleviate staffing deficiencies in the city’s water department ignited underlying, and mostly unrelated, grievances.

Meridian operates under a strong mayor form of government. Under the strong mayor system, the city council cannot issue orders to rank-and-file city workers, dictate whether or not individual employees are given raises within their pay bands or demand certain roads be paved before others.

The mayor, under our system of government, cannot order the council to provide specific levels of funding, demand projects or contracts be approved or move money across departments without council approval.

The City Council can, should and does ask questions related to what they are being asked to approve and requests information council members believe is necessary to get a full understanding of the issues before calling for a vote. The council has a right to request the information, and the city administration should prioritize getting the council the answers it needs to make informed decisions.

The mayor can, should and does work with his department heads to identify issues or potential problems within the city and work with experts to propose solutions the council can enact. The heads of city departments bring decades of experience in their respective fields to the table, and the insight they can provide to both the mayor and council cannot be overvalued.

Local government officials are often placed in no win situations, and there will never be enough money, manpower or time to address every problem, tackle every project and patch every pothole in the city. The decisions made by both the council and city administration are all too often the better of two evils or band-aids aimed at staving off disaster until resources and time allow for a proper fix.

While there are differences aplenty, little doubt exists that the council, mayor and department heads share the common goal of wanting what is best for their city and its residents.

We encourage council members and city leaders to put aside their personal feelings for each other and work together for the betterment of the community because if they don’t, we will all lose.