Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
December 28, 2007
5. Agencies, Programs, People
INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUES:
Water-line project to make Temecula commute a little tougher -
PALMDALE WATER DISTRICT ISSUES
Editorial: Murky move on to dump water manager - Antelope Valley Press
INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUES:
Water-line project to make Temecula commute a little tougher
Riverside Press
By Jeff Horseman, staff writer
One of Temecula's most heavily traveled roads will become a little more congested in the next few months with work to install a water line to irrigate a golf course being built at Pechanga Resort & Casino.
On the bright side, the city Public Works Director Bill Hughes said the long-awaited widening of
Workers will install the line on
Branching off Temecula Parkway/Highway 79 South,
Hughes said the city worked with Pechanga engineers for months to devise a traffic-control plan.
The water line is not a city project, and Hughes said the Rancho California Water District and the Eastern Municipal Water District, which will own the line, do not own right of way off
"We have done virtually everything we could to minimize the impact," Hughes said at this month's Temecula City Council meeting. Hughes said work will be done be mostly between 8:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. and notices will be sent to nearby homes. At times, police officers will direct traffic, he said.
The end result will be a water line providing recycled water to Journey at Pechanga, an 18-hole golf course scheduled to open in July 2008.
"Everyday reclaimed water gets dumped into riverbeds, unused, because there aren't enough places to use it," said Pechanga Tribal Chairman Mark Macarro in a statement.
Once the water line is done, Hughes said the city should be ready to start a project to add two lanes to
Estimated to cost $14 million, the long-planned project will also repave the road and add a landscaped median, sidewalks and other improvements. #
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_spechanga28.345c1f8.html
PALMDALE WATER DISTRICT ISSUES
Editorial: Murky move on to dump water manager
What in the heck is going on at the Palmdale Water District these days?
There was a campaign that ended in November with a guy named Gordon Dexter losing by less than a hundred votes.
Being enough of a believer in democracy to not contest the results, Dexter lost to another guy named Jeff Storm who served on the board in 2004 and 2005.
Understand, most citizens do not know who serves on boards for libraries, school districts, utility service districts or, very often, even city councils. It's because we're mostly all living our lives. We work. We raise our kids. We commute.
People elected to service district boards aren't rock stars. They go about their actions off most people's radar.
So, the only time you hear about these nearly invisible elected officials is when your rates are going up, or when there's a controversy, or when such controversy is triggered by an elected official doing something really embarrassing.
Whether there is any justification for it or not, the Palmdale Water District's elected board is handling the public's business right now in a manner that is really embarrassing. Or, at least, it should be embarrassing to the board, but examples of shameless behavior by public officials aren't really that hard to find.
So, backing up the tape, Dexter loses narrowly in an election where the guy who wins accuses the incumbent of pursuing a "toilet to tap" water strategy for the district. Which wasn't true at all, but that hardly matters these days.
It was true that all members of the incumbent board voted for a feasibility study of what the impact of use of tertiary water would be, but that is not the same thing. It's a topic researched by many water agencies these days.
So, making out that Dexter was treating PWD customers like lab rats wasn't true, but it worked. And that's politics. Do what works.
Since the election, Storm, who returned to the board from a previous term, has unabashedly pursued the ouster of the district's general manager, Dennis LaMoreaux. Why he is doing this, he won't say. But his moves for the ouster are pretty bold.
This past week Storm said there was no violation of the state's open meeting law - the Brown Act - when he circulated paperwork during a suspicious bathroom break at a budget meeting. His move - circulated like a note in class - was to call for a special meeting convened to discuss - um - getting rid of the district manager.
Hey, it worked in
Now, as to the manager: Who knows whether there is a case to get rid of the guy? Certainly not the public.
But one thing is clear as potable tap water: The case for handling this maneuver in this manner is murky as brown effluent. Or Brown Act effluent.
Storm says nobody violated the Brown Act. But there are rules, and a prosecutor from the
You can't take action, discuss action or call for action when a meeting is not in session. And there is no evidence the meeting was in session when Storm was passing his notes.
Storm tells the Valley Press the meeting was in session. Really?
Editors and a reporter listened to a tape record of the meeting.
After the bathroom break - initiated by Storm - there was never anything audible by board President Dick Wells calling the meeting back into session. Another board member, Raul Figueroa, had to ask whether the board was in session, but all the notes had been passed around the classroom before that happened.
So, again, we ask: What the heck is going on at Palmdale Water District?
First of all, it looks as though there is cronyism in play.
Some small number of politically connected employees who stand to gain with removal of the manager might move up. Other employees are afraid of retribution.
It's too bad that these things happen around official agencies all the time. And they appear to be happening with this agency now. Politicians will pursue their agendas, and often the public has to hurry to catch up to learn what they are.
But even if you have an agenda clear as potable tap water, following the law isn't optional.
No one has ever been prosecuted on a criminal basis for violation of the state law that is intended to safeguard the public's access to its own business. It frequently is skirted, bent, broken and mutilated.
We applaud District Attorney Steve Cooley, who has made public integrity a priority in his administration of justice.
The Public Integrity investigators know their business. When they find violation, they can admonish or warn. But they can do more than that. They can subpoena and seize records. They can require minutes and records of meetings to be sent to the prosecutor's office.
On interview, if your version doesn't square with the record, the prosecutor can assess whether you are being truthful. If concluded to be deceptive, the investigation can lift to an entirely new level on a different level of offense.
Martha Stewart didn't go to prison for a stock securities violation. Found guilty of lying to federal authorities, she did some time.
So whether board members pursue a (so far unsupported) case to remove a manager who has already been evaluated and concluded to be in effective performance of duty prior to the election that was waged on the fallacious toilet-to-tap issue is one thing.
Violating state law in order to achieve that course, that is another thing. #
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