[Sosfbay-discuss] Santa Clara Valley Water District

[Wes Rolley]

I have come to the conclusion that the entire Board of Directors of the 
Santa Clara Valley Water District needs to be replaced and the sooner 
this happens, the better off we will be.  This may be rather difficult 
as the decision to implement term limits on Directors has to be made by 
the directors themselves, an unlikely occurrence.

Initially, my criticism's of the water district dealt with the fact that 
they had not yet begun to address the realities of climate change and 
sea level rise.  I knew that there were others who were concerned with 
the financial mismanagement at the district, but I was not fully aware 
of just how much this will cost us.

I have started a conversation with those South County residents charging 
fiscal irresponsibility.  This will continue and we will seek to find 
people to run for the Board at every opportunity and will provide 
backing to such efforts.

Some of the problems can be highlighted as follows:

Santa Clara Valley Water District serves 1.7 million residents with 825 
employees
Orange County Water District serves 2.3 million residents with less than 
half the number of employees.

At the same time, the Water District salary profile is well above that 
for comparable organizations in Coastal California.

Santa Clara Valley Water District budget for Fiscal Year 2009 gives a 
lengthy discussion of financial debt obligations where the largest sums 
fall under the heading of Certificates of Participation.  This is really 
the costs to the water district for their share of the construction of 
the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project.  I am told that 
at least one of these has never been paid since the obligation was first 
incurred in 1987, accumulating increased interest while the water 
district has been in constant "negotiation" on the rate.  The net result 
seems to be about $100 million that we could have avoided paying and 
which must now be paid at the worst possible time for the economy.

Water rates will go up again this year and it will be conveniently 
blamed on the drought and the need to cover fixed costs with a dwindling 
revenue base... less water used means less revenue to the Water District. 

I am looking for other Greens who have the interest and the time to 
carry on this fight for a Water District that is capable of applying 
sound financial policies to the problem of a sustainable future.  We are 
developing a support system for those interested in this most important 
issue.  The National Green Party EcoAction Committee will become a hub 
for sharing such information.   The first part of this is a brochure 
that is  suitable for tabling and which can be downloaded in pdf format 
from the EcoAction Committee pages. 
http://www.gp.org/committees/ecoaction/documents/EcoAction_Water_Brochure.pdf

At the same time, we are working on an information / skill sharing 
effort in California.  It will  most likely be run under the Green 
Issues Working Group, but that is not yet clear.  Whatever the 
structure, it will have full participation from Martin Zehr.  Martin is 
new to the Bay Area but brings over a decade of experience working on 
various citizen group, regional task forces, etc. as an advocate for 
public participation drafting new water laws and regulations in New 
Mexico. 

Contact me off list at wrolley at charter.net if you are willing to work on 
putting financial responsibility and sustainable planning back into the 
practices of our local water delivery systems.  It is all there in the 
rhetoric but not the reality.

Wes

-- 
"Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente

Wes Rolley
17211 Quail Court, Morgan Hill, CA 95037
http://www.refpub.com/ -- Tel: 408.778.3024