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RLECWD
The Rate Increase story from my perspective
by Jay O'Brien
Director, RLECWD
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TWO YEAR PROCESS
When I came on the Board in December 1998, it was apparent to the Board
that a rate increase was inevitable. We didn't know how much and we
didn't have a master plan or a financial plan to guide us. We
instructed our General Manager to proceed as fast as possible to advise
us, keeping in mind the legal requirements we had to follow.
It took nearly two years to complete the Master Plan and Financial
plan, now finally culminating with public hearings and Board action. I
was President of the Board during the first two years of this process,
and I was frustrated by the amount of time that it took to meet all of
the legal requirements necessary before we could take action. Our
General Manager used a Project Tracking program so the Board could be
regularly briefed on the status of each of the critical parts of the
process.
DECISION AUGUST 21, 2000
We on the RLECWD Board finally decided what we were going to do at our
August 21, 2000 meeting. I was convinced that going to a 100% increase
coincident with the return to monthly billing was the prudent direction
to take, rather than the 145% proposed by our financial consultant. I
felt that we could take the 100% step, and then wait to see if we
prevailed in court with our pending legal action, perhaps then avoiding
the other 45% increase. The Board reached consensus to direct the
General Manager to prepare to raise the rates 100%. There was no "vote"
taken at this meeting, and there was no differing opinion proffered, as
there was no formal document or process to approve. There has been no
"vote" taken by the Board on this issue, at least not as of February
18, 2001. A video tape of this Board meeting, like all Board meetings,
is available for viewing at the RLECWD office.
FIRST PRESS RELEASE
I was adamant that we should completely inform our ratepayers at that
time of our actions, and I was convinced that if we did the right kind
of job of sharing our knowledge with the ratepayers that they would
support us. As Board President I pressed General Manager Mike Phelan to
prepare the initial press release. He did so and it was published in
the August 24th
edition of the Rio Linda News. It was also published on the Rio
Linda Elverta email mailing list. Mr. Bill Shepherd responded to that
email, and I placed our exchange of correspondence on
the mailing list. I felt this was a great start to our effort to
inform our constituents. This press release also mentioned the Board's
desire to create a citizen's review committee.
COMMUNICATIONS PROBLEM
Almost immediately, three members of the Board demanded a special
meeting of the Board. At that meeting, held on August 30, just days
after the press release, they firmly directed our General Manager and
me that what we had done was incorrect and inconsistent with the policy
manual. I was told on the record at that Board meeting that my message
was "sabotage" to the re-election of Director Robert Blanchard. Mike
and I were directed that all "press releases" must first be run to the
entire Board for approval, strictly in accordance with the policy
manual. That effectively put a clamp on the public outreach effort
until after the election.
In my opinion, the only "sabotage" was that done to the effort to
let the ratepayers know what was going on and why. In my opinion the
upcoming election was not a proper reason to shield the public from our
actions.
MY INTENT TO INFORM
It was my intention that the ratepayers would have been completely
informed about all of the issues and about what we were doing before
they received the official legal notice of the proposed rate increase.
It was my intention that it would NOT be a surprise when it was
received. It was my intention everyone would know what was going on
long before they received the official notice with their Christmas
mail. I anticipated that informed ratepayers would attend our meetings,
or at least express interest; it would have been possible to form
committees including those interested. But few came, as the public
information effort stopped.
REGRET
I regret the fact that those who missed the August article in the Rio
Linda Elverta News were caught off guard by the official notice when it
was received in December 2000. That is not what I
wanted, and I am embarrassed by the fact that communications were shut
off by my fellow Board members until after their re-election.
CONTINUED SUPPORT
Having said that, however, I see no other realistic alternative to the
rate increase, and I continue to support it as it was endorsed by your
Board, without any reservation, on August 21, 2000.
PROTEST GATHERING
As is their right, citizens began an effort to gather petitions
intended to stop the proposed rate increase. Director Jerry Wickham,
even though he endorsed the Board's direction to the General Manager on
August 21, worked with Ms. Mary Harris to erect signs in the district
and to mobilize volunteers to collect signed protests. Initially, I was
encouraged by what appeared to be a focus on the issues involved
without personalization. I was wrong.
PERSONALIZATION AND MISINFORMATION
I was approached at the Post Office by a protest gatherer (later
identified as Mr. Louis Bryson) who asked me to sign a prepared form
protesting the rate increase. The well-meaning person was apparently
briefed with biased information, and he was willing to place the blame
on the present Board of Directors. He alleged that Board members were
getting rich off of the Water District. He said that Board members
spend 8 hours/day at the district office and get paid for it. I
identified myself to him and informed him that Board members get paid
$75 for each meeting we attend as a Board Member, either at Board
meetings or representing the District. I explained that we are limited
to pay for no more than one meeting a day and for no more than six
meetings per month. Getting rich? I told him that if money was my only
motivation I would rather have my time back.
The petition gatherer at the Post Office asked me why I would serve
on the Board if it wasn't for the money? I told him that I was trying
to pay back the community that supported me for so many years. That
seemed to fall on deaf ears and he went back into what appeared to be a
canned spiel about how corrupt we Board members were. He threatened me,
that if we passed this rate increase that we would all be recalled. I
pressed him many times for his alternatives; he offered none and could
only say that "no one would let us go without water, someone would take
over", like the County or the City. But when I asked him to run for a
Director seat on the Board, he said that he was too busy.
I learned from neighbors not served by RLECWD that they had been
encouraged to sign protests, and when they refused as they were not
rate payers they were told "sign anyway, they won't be checked". I also
learned that multiple protests were solicited from different members of
a family at one service address.
PUBLIC HEARING JANUARY 22, 2001
Much misinformation was articulated by the public at the public hearing
held at the Orchard School. Unfortunately, the Board was unable to
respond. One speaker, Mr. Joe Leonhart, specifically asked me if I was
on my own well; I answered that I was but as he was holding the
microphone he interrupted me and would not allow me to complete my
response.
MY OWN WELL
In addition to Mr. Leonhart, others have stated that I don't have any
idea what this means to ratepayers because I have my own well. It is
true that I have my own well. However, I received District water for 26
years before I moved a half mile in 1985. My mother-in-law lives in our
old house now and she pays the water bill. She is on a fixed income.
What the rate increase proposes is proper, and I have made sure that
she understands the need. She, unlike most of the ratepayers, was privy
to the problem and the solution before she received the official
notice.
AD HOC PROTEST COUNTING COMMITTEE
I offer my apology for the unfinished business of the ad hoc committee.
At the special Board meeting held February 5th, I was appointed to
chair an ad hoc committee to validate and count the protests. I failed
in that task. Here's the story, which again shows how the rate increase
proposal has been personalized, diverting the attention to individuals,
not to the issues.
I OFFERED
As the District had no legal obligation to do anything at all with the
protests, and as I had heard from constituents that did not sign the
protests because they support the Board action, I offered to chair an
ad hoc committee to count the protests. I wanted to be sure that my
silent constituents were also heard, along with those that sent in
protests. By email,
I suggested to Board President Doug Cater that he appoint Director
Jerry Wickham and me to the committee, along with petition gatherer and
ratepayer Walt Boatwright (who had offered
to
assist). Doug
agreed, and appointed me as Chair. I asked Jerry and Walt to serve,
and I gathered calendar information from them and tentatively scheduled
the first committee meeting. By email,
I asked
petition gatherers Paul Harbert, Mary Harris and Darrell Nelson to
attend the first committee meeting. Only Darrell
Nelson replied to
confirm, yet strangely he did not attend. Interestingly, Mary Harris responded,
but only to request that I post the private email I had sent to her on
the public Rio Linda Elverta mailing list. I
did so, and
almost immediately, Ms. Charlea Moore
questioned Doug about the committee. He
replied, and
then Ms. Moore
accused him of violating the Brown act. Ms. Moore really got the
committee off to a fine start. Ms. Moore later also accused me, via email, of
violating the Brown act.
COMMITTEE APPOINTED
Board President Doug Cater announced his appointment of me as committee
chairman at the Special Board meeting on February 5th. He also
appointed Jerry Wickham, Walt Boatwright, Paul Harbert and Mary Harris.
Charlea Moore claimed that the Brown act had been violated by Doug, and
shouted down District General Counsel Ginny Cahill, much to my
embarrassment. Ginny's legal opinion, heard once Ms. Moore was quieted,
was that there had been no violation of law. This embarrassing incident
is captured on video tape for anyone who wishes to see it.
COMMITTEE'S FIRST MEETING
At the first committee meeting on February 7, dates were set for
subsequent meetings. Of course not all of the members could attend all
of the meetings. The
first committee meeting was over at 7 PM.
FIRST INDICATION OF DISTRUST
My phone rang at 9:15 PM the night of the first committee meeting, and
it was Mary Harris. She explained that she had just spoken to Charlea
Moore, who advised her that it was illegal for us to hold committee
meetings without a majority of the committee present; thus the future
committee meetings scheduled when Mary could not attend were illegal. I
assured Mary that Ms. Moore was not providing accurate legal advice. I
refused to change the meeting schedule as all of the committee had been
present when the schedule was established. At 9:27 PM, Director Wickham
called me on the phone, and said that Ms. Harris had just made a very
emotional phone call to him, and that based on that phone call he would
not now agree to meet unless Ms. Harris was present. At the next committee meeting,
future meetings without Ms. Harris were canceled, without regard to the
rearrangements in schedules made by others, to accede to Ms. Harris'
wishes. Ms. Harris, with legal advice received from Ms. Moore, had now
taken control of the ad hoc committee schedule.
COMMITTEE DISAGREEMENT
At our meeting on
Saturday, February 10, just over 200 protests were identified that
needed further staff review. Ms. Harris demanded to observe staff doing
computer lookups, but I declined to commit staff to committee overview
as I felt it inappropriate for our committee to stand over the backs of
the District's clerical personnel. I offered to prepare instructions to
staff for lookup, and ask District management to be available at the
next committee meeting to provide the results of the lookups and, at
that time, justify any finding as requested by the committee. The
committee voted 4 to 2 to follow my proposal, with Ms. Harris and Mr.
Harbert dissenting. I explained that I would sort the protests and
prepare instructions for staff; and Mr. Boatwright agreed to review
those instructions for me. Ms. Harris, although present, apparently did
not hear or understand what was said. As I recall, Ms. Harris was
talking while the rest of the committee was resolving this issue; that
may be why she does not recall our action. I do recall Director Wickham
telling her "you lost" as she was leaving after that discussion.
Unfortunately, the February 10 meeting was not tape recorded.
REVIEW OF INSTRUCTIONS TO STAFF
After our Saturday meeting, I sent email
to the
committee that included the statement that I would have Walt Boatwright
review my instructions. By email Ms.
Harris
then demanded to meet with Walt and me; up to this time I thought that
Walt and I could review the instructions on the telephone. But as Ms.
Harris demanded to be present, I arranged
a 5 PM meeting
on Monday. I sorted the protests (at the District office) Monday
Morning, and returned at 3:40 PM Monday afternoon to review the video
tape of the last Board meeting. I placed the 17 stacks of protests on
the tables so that they would be available for me to show Walt and Mary
what I had discovered while doing the sorting, and to get their
approval of the instructions I had prepared for staff. Mrs. Harris
arrived a few minutes before Mr. Boatwright. She expressed her
displeasure that I had the protests out on the tables, stating that
what I was doing was wrong. I attempted to remind her of the Saturday
discussion, to no avail. It was as if she had not attended the Saturday
meeting! We reviewed the instructions, and Ms. Harris again demanded to
be present when staff was doing lookups. I again declined, attempting
to no avail to remind her that the issue had already been decided by
the committee. Ms. Harris then brought in her own list of petitions she
had gathered, and Walt and I assisted her in doing her independent
reviews, which lasted until 6:30 PM.
PUBLIC DISPARAGEMENT OF MY INTEGRITY
I posted email at
9:53 PM Monday with the results of our review of instructions. At
10:35 PM Monday, Ms.
Moore posted email based on her phone call, just concluded, with
Ms. Harris. Based on that conversation, Ms. Moore stated that my
presence "alone" with the protests has "betrayed the publics trust" and
she accused me of lying about Walt's presence. Ms. Moore alleged "If
Mary hadn't stopped to see what was going on - how much more would the
count have changed." Note that this entire set of allegations by Ms.
Moore was based on the telephone call between Ms. Harris and Ms. Moore. I responded to Ms.
Moore, as I could not let her disrespectful, misinformed and
argumentative allegations and accusations go unanswered.
FURTHER EROSION OF COMMITTEE
Ms. Harris then posted email alleging
again that she was not aware that I would have Walt review my
instructions to staff. She stated that my description of her interest
to have staff review "duplicates" was "totally untrue", then restated
my "totally untrue" statement as "truth". I responded,
concluding that all future committee meetings would be tape recorded,
as Ms. Harris had left me no recourse.
ADDITIONAL ATTACK ON ME
Ms. Moore then posted
her statement "I'm only trying to prove that Jay O'Brian [sic]
violated the Brown Act and used his trust to enter and count, sort
stack whatever the letters of protest all by himself - which he did and
Mary caught him redhanded." Following this, she threatened to
quote me (out of context) and send out a flyer, stating that my
constituents would be interested in my view of their protests. She
capped that with a later email admission
"... I do not flatter myself by thinking I'm
anything other
than a cheerful, loudmouth, know-it-all..."
COMMITTEE DOOMED TO FAIL
Given all of this, the committee meeting on February 15th was doomed.
There was no way that this committee would be functional, in my
opinion, with Ms. Harris present. It was agreed by the Committee that
Mr. Harbert would prepare and present the report to the Board. I
attempted twice to remind Ms. Harris about her presence at the Saturday
meeting when everyone knew I would sort the protests; both times she
interrupted me. I gave up attempting to communicate with her.
Fortunately, the meeting was video taped so that Ms Harris cannot again
have a different and unique view of the proceedings. My attempts to
communicate with her are documented 52 and 63 minutes after the start
of the tape.
PERSONAL ATTACK
It is impossible to fight people who repeat lies enough times that they
appear to become fact. And, even when forced to admit they are wrong,
as was Mary Harris at the February 15th meeting, they refuse to take
responsibility for their actions and publicly retract their statements.
My repeating "I'm not a crook" would get nowhere, and so far I'm not
willing to waste my time taking any action against the apparently
conspiring Ms. Moore and Ms. Harris. After the committee meeting, out
of earshot of everyone else, and not on the video tape of the meeting,
Ms. Harris said privately to me "I'm sorry if I caused you any grief."
I replied "Ok", and stifled my real reaction.
FINAL COMMITTEE MEETING
The committee's final meeting was February 15th. My report to General
Manager Mike Phelan recapped the committee's activity. The
committee decided that Committeemember Paul Harbert would write the
report to the Board.
MORE POT STIRRING BY MS. MOORE
After discussing the February 15th meeting with Ms. Harris, Ms. Moore prodded me
for information on the Committee's results, even though Ms. Harris
participated in the decision to have Mr. Harbert, not me, prepare the
results. Director
Griffin responded, and Moore stirred
the pot
even more. I
replied, explaining that Harbert was preparing a report.
CONFRONTATION AT DISTRICT OFFICE
Ms. Moore accosted me in the Water District Office on February 22nd.
She chided me for not publishing the Committee results, and admitted
that she had discussed the Committee's last meeting with Ms. Harris,
who appeared at the office before I left. Unfortunately, I lost my
temper and raised my voice at Moore, reminding her she had publicly
accused me of being a liar and a crook. I apologized to the RLECWD
staff for losing my temper in their presence.
I sent email to
the mailing list after the Board Meeting Agenda was posted on line with
the Committee report detailing these happenings, including the
confrontation at the District Office. Paul Harbert and Ms. Harris responded to my
message.
COMMITTEE REPORT
Paul Harbert presented the committee's report
at the Februiary 26, 2001 Board meeting.
SUMMARY
I originally prepared this writeup early this year with the intent that
it would be a documentary of a successful rate setting story. It became
a documentary of an ad hoc petition counting committee, which I also
wished would be successful. In retrospect, I regret volunteering to
convene the committee and I have since concluded that no committee can
be successful with either Ms. Harris or Ms. Moore as participants. Call
it personalization on my part, but I cannot remain silent and let their
accusations stand unanswered. I originally opted to not publish this
document, as I felt it would be divisive if published, so I did not do
so. However, as Ms. Harris and Ms. Moore have now both signed the
notice of intent to recall me from the office of Director of the Rio
Linda/Elverta Community Water District, and as such are now public
figures in this issue, it is time to publish this document so
that others can see my side of the story and perhaps understand the
personal vendettas of Ms. Harris and Ms. Moore and why they wish to
remove me from office.
I didn't sign on to public office to be accused of being a liar, a
cheat, and violating the public trust. It just isn't worth it. I tell
the truth, and attempt to be credible. It appears that some others in
our community do not hold truth, integrity and credibility to the same
value as do I.
Written and prepared by Jay O'Brien
5/27/2001
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