Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
May 21, 2008
1. Top Items -
California offers money for ideas to help Delta
The Sacramento
Water board raises salaries: Members oppose call for term limits, defend setting highest wages in the state
Mercury News -5/21/08
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California offers money for ideas to help Delta
The Sacramento
Bee Metro Staff
State water officials are looking for new ideas to solve the Delta's many problems, and they plan to pay for them.
In the new "Delta Knowledge Funding Program" announced this week, the California Department of Water Resources is offering $2 million in grants to nonprofits, universities, private consultants and local government agencies. Individual grants of as much as $250,000 will be awarded to churn new research on water quality, levee stability, habitat restoration and other issues in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
"We're looking for other ways of addressing these things," said Sean Bagheban, a senior engineer at the department.
"It is to educate us more about things that can be done, more innovative approaches we can take to look at problems in the Delta."
Other proposals could examine carbon sequestration, in which global warming gases from the atmosphere are stored in plants, soil or below ground.
Another interest is projects to reverse subsidence, the process by which many Delta islands have fallen below sea level because of the erosion and decay of organic soils.
A meeting to discuss the program is planned for 10 a.m. June 16 in the
http://www.sacbee.com/378/story/954803.html
Water board raises salaries: Members oppose call for term limits, defend setting highest wages in the state
Mercury News -5/21/08
By Paul Rogers
Board members of the Santa Clara Valley Water District, a government agency buffeted by charges of excessive spending, on Tuesday approved salary increases for two of their top staff members, making them the most highly paid such employees of any water district in the state.
The unanimous vote came only moments after the board voiced opposition to placing a measure on the November ballot subjecting its members to term limits.
Board chairwoman Rosemary Kamei defended the pay increases during a week in which the board is also considering raising fees to customers.
"I think they are fair for the work that is being done," said Kamei, noting that unlike most water districts,
Water district counsel Debra Cauble's salary will increase 8 percent to $221,720 a year. The board also gave Cauble a $12,000 bonus, and increased her monthly car allowance to $750.
By comparison, Karen Tachiki, general counsel of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, will make $221,832 this year, but with no bonus and a $700 car allowance.
Los Angeles-based Metropolitan has 18 million customers - 10 times more than
Board members also approved a 5 percent raise for board clerk Lauren Keller, to $135,574 a year. At the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the Bay Area's largest water district, the clerk earns $103,716, and the clerk at Metropolitan makes $99,816.
Controversy crops up
Based in
Last year, former CEO Stan Williams resigned after he hired then-board member Greg Zlotnick to a newly created, $184,000-a-year job at the district without advertising the position or telling board members.
During Williams' tenure, the district's staff grew 46 percent - from 541 people in 1994 to 789 in 2005 - according to an audit by the
As part of the fallout from those controversies, and amid pending state legislation that would change the way board members are elected, the issue of term limits has arisen.
On Tuesday, board members rebuffed the idea of putting term limits on the ballot.
"I have met all kinds of folks, and not one person came to me and talked about term limits. No one's ever told me they have a problem with term limits, and I'm out there 7-24," said board member Dick Santos of Alviso.
The board voted for more public hearings on the topic, without setting a timetable.
"I've seen more good people pushed to the sidelines through term limits. It's pretty sad. It's arbitrary," said Joe Judge, a board member who has served 22 years.
As its spending again comes under scrutiny, the board is scheduled to vote Friday on whether to increase the "pump tax," the fee it charges city water agencies and farmers to pump groundwater for drinking and irrigation.
That fee has doubled over the past 10 years. The district is proposing raising it an additional 9.5 percent - $520 an acre-foot, up from $475 - for
Voices for change
One opponent of the fees and supporter of term limits is John Roeder, chairman of the Great Oaks Water Co., which buys district water and provides it to 100,000
Roeder's company has sued the district, claiming it has raised rates in violation of state law. He said the district has no check on its finances because it raises the pump tax every year to fit its spending.
"It would be good for the county if there were new members on this board," he said.
Diana Foss, a Willow Glen designer who is challenging Judge in the June 3 election, said she supports a limit of three four-year terms.
"I think if they did put a term-limits measure on the ballot, it would pass," Foss said. "The people who are paying attention think it is time for a change."#
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_9331313?nclick_check=1
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