Arizona has diverse voices at its water negotiating table, and that’s a good thing.

We get better policy when broad swaths of water users — including tribes and others that in past years have had muted voices — are actively involved.

But the number of cooks in the kitchen, coupled with a political climate where water policy is being increasingly used as a partisan bludgeon, means we can’t keep negotiating in the same old ways.

Consider this year, where major water bills were resurrected with changes in the waning hours of the legislative session, leaving basically no time for public comment or vetting.

Bills that, even just days before, were considered by many to be DOA.

A few people in back rooms made those changes, leaving everyone else feeling rushed and completely blindsided.

This is not how we should be making wide-reaching water policy.

Especially given the kind of concessions that must be made to finally move wide-reaching policy over the finish line.

People are disappointed with how months of effort fell apart, and rightly........

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