Rosemary Chalmers, host of “Good Morning Monterey Bay” on KSCO 1080 AM, lives in Ben Lomond, and is a ratepayer in the San Lorenzo Valley Water District.
On Tuesday, March 21, she read a story in pressbanner.com: “SLV Water legal tab: nearly $240K.” The next day, she greeted her radio audience by saying, “My blood pressure is just soaring through the roof this morning, ladies and gentleman.”
Here is a transcript of what she said next, reprinted here with her permission:
The San Lorenzo Valley Water District – seemingly a group of people that are incompetent, and they are imbeciles. Brian Lee in my in my personal opinion needs to be fired from the position of general manager.
Let me tell you, you’ve heard me talk about this more often than not, and it’s an important situation – that they are behaving like a little government all on their own.
The costs to the ratepayers, of which I am one, for them to pursue the lawsuit involving the former board director Terry Vierra and his conflict of interest – which they lost again last Friday to Judge Gallagher; they have until the 24th to decide whether to go forward or not, and yes, they are going forward.
It looks like the costs right now according to Barry Holtzclaw of the Press Banner are going to be likely reaching nearly $240,000 this week. This is disgusting and it’s disgraceful.
Now I ask you, here is the crux of the matter, and people have been telling me things because people know I am interested in this: Why is the district continuing to pay and to push to pay Mr. Vierra’s bills in the case of the piece of real estate property purchased, on which he and his wife made $12,000 when he was on the board of directors?
Could it be, ladies and gentleman – and I’m just putting this out there into the ether –could it be that Mr. Vierra said to Mr. Lee, when Mr. Lee was to be hired, “OK, you come on in, and I’ll help get you the job and when the time comes, you’ll have my back.”
And now Mr. Lee, who is the general manager of this ridiculous organization – and by that I refer to the board and the general manager, I’m not talking about the workers –could it be that Mr. Vierra said, “If you don’t, I’m going to sue you?” And that’s why they are having a closed-door meeting today (March 22)?
Mr. Lee’s job is definitely under scrutiny, as well it should be, and I’m telling you when the next election comes up, there’s going to be some empty seats on that board.
Mr. (Bill) Smallman is the only person who has spoken up.
When I had Gene Ratcliffe, head of the board, here last week: “Oh no, we can’t tell you about that.” No, of course they won’t tell us about that. There’s something damn well going on here, and to foist that money on the backs of the 7,900 homes that are in the SLV when the infrastructure of the system is collapsing is disgusting, absolutely disgusting: 7,900 homes, or customers as they say – there are more than that.
How are we going to shoulder this bill, how are we going to pay it? Are we going to sell some of the properties that have already been purchased that couldn’t be used in the first place? Oh, I bet we’re not going to do that.
I just cannot believe their sheer bloody incompetence as a board of directors. Gene Ratcliffe should resign as the head of that board for allowing this to go forward. We’re talking about a minimum of two years forward from now to get this seen and the judge turned them down on 11 items on Friday and still they’re going forward – a bull-headed group of idiots.
