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The expanded Marco Island sewer system is coming down my street, jostling the neighborhood with pyramids of gravel and juggernaut-like vehicles lurching about.

Flag-carrying guys in safety helmets wave me to stop or go, squeezing two-lane traffic into one unencumbered lane.

It is a welcome, necessary inconvenience that we’ll toast when it’s finished. I’m glad this jumble of noise and progress is underway. Sewers are expensive, but vital.

As you’ll recall, the controversy over finishing Marco’s sewer system was contentious. It dominated the January City Council elections, which pro-sewer candidates won in a landslide.

Now the rhetoric and rancor is giving way to mess, mud and 7 a.m. house-rattling booms, clanks and thuds.

However, even as we revel in the progress of our sewer program, we shudder as we hear about some Marco leaders who may want the city to take over electric service. Now?

We still need time to grapple with the fact that we own the water and sewer facilities. Must taxpayers get into the electricity business too?

That’s a power grab we can do without for now. Maybe forever.

Our existing electricity service is good. Power outages seem less frequent than in years past and those that occur get fixed relatively quickly.

What’s behind this zany idea of becoming a powerhouse of electric power? I hear different theories.

One is that it’s all about the hope of someday having all our power lines underground. Some are now saying that a city-owned electric utility could do that more cheaply than can our current company, Lee County Electric Cooperative.

True or not, do we really want to dig up more streets, swales, and sidewalks to put power lines out of sight? My guess is, a vote on that would be overwhelmingly “No.”

We’ve been through several years of improving major roads and bridges in addition to the dig-we-must sewer installations. It’s all good, despite the dust and the detours, the orange construction cones and the red-faces of frustrated drivers. It’s worth it because we need these projects to keep Marco coping with its maturation.

Do we need all our power lines underground? Nope. It would be nice, one day, making Marco more attractive and probably making power outages fewer in big storms.

Even if it could be done now at no taxpayers’ expense — and how likely is that, really — even then we would say absolutely no, to taking on the underground power line project any time soon.

Another theory floating around town is that maybe our savvy city counselors are offering this power-takeover idea only as a warning to LCEC that major utility rate increases would be met with rigid resistance. If that’s all it is, OK, but a city utility takeover should be out of the question until, at the earliest, the sewer construction project is complete in three or four years.

One result of having elections is that the winners feel they must get to work and do stuff. We also have a new, eager city manager who wants to do good by doing well.

Citizens must make it clear that coasting can be fun and productive. Cruise control gives us a breather, a chance to maybe xeriscape our sewer-disturbed front yards.

Let’s relax and take time to smell our newly planted flowers.

Contact Don Farmer at don@donfarmer.com