Wake Commissioner Paul Coble sounds different from Mayor Paul Coble.

As Mayor of Raleigh, Coble, along with then-City Manager Dempsey Benton connected Wake Forest and Garner as the first major water customers to Raleigh's growing network in 2000.

Left out of the equation was a sounding board for the towns to voice their opinions.

Coble defined his mayoral term with a brand of municipal manifest destiny that paid little credence to regional cooperation and more toward a city's right to set their own rules.

The so-called smart growth movement took away a city's fundamental rights, Coble contended. "I think every city has a right to make its own decisions on growth and then live with those decisions," he was quoted as saying in the N&O in May of 2000.

It would seem the position of municipal frontier trailblazer wouldn't jibe with his new initiative to provide an opportunity for regional cooperation.

Currently Wake County is studying the creation of a regional water authority that would give seats at the table to towns connected to Raleigh's water system, which include Wake Forest and Rolesville.

"The way we're approaching this is all the partners in the system have a say in how the system gets delivered," Wake County manager David Cooke told the Board of Commissioners.

Coble, reached by phone, still holds true to his 2000 position but said it's crucial to bring more voices into the discussion.

"I'm sensitive to the fact of that its Raleigh's utility," Coble said. "But these other towns are now in it and what I'm hearing from the mayors is they want to have fair and open discussions and hear and voice their opinions, whether it has to do with water restrictions or garbage disposals."

Coble took a minute Monday to chastise Raleigh again over how it treats its partners in the Wake water game, citing the recent kerfuffle over a systemwide garbage disposal ban as example of Raleigh bigfooting its water customers.

"They banned it quietly without notifying any of the partner towns," Coble said Monday. "Garbage disposals don't have anything to do with the lack of water."

In the next few months, Wake County will draft a plan based on Coble's idea to create a some type of sounding board and flex their regional muscle.

The plan may not contradict his previous stands on municipal autonomy. But as he explains how his new plan works, long-timers may find it interesting to hear Coble leading a push for more regional cooperation.