The Newark City Council is considering an ordinance that would keep the city from forming a Municipal Utilities Authority without a public vote.

The Newark Water Group has collected 5,000 signatures from people strongly against creating an authority to oversee the city’s water system.

Councilman Darrin Sharif says the advocacy group was able to do so because the city hasn’t done a good job of educating residents about just what an M-U-A is.

“And the people who say they know what it is, they don’t talk about how it’s formed, what its responsibilities are, what operations they’re going to take over, they say it’s privatizing the water.”

An MUA would still be a government agency – except that it would be run by a board of appointees that could borrow money and set rates without city approval.

If the council doesn’t vote to adopt the ordinance when it meets next week, it would then be put to a public referendum.