Lompico water board members look to mend rift

Lompico Water District board members Chris Kilgus and Jane Wyckoff hope to mend relations between the five-member board and the district’s staff, even as the Santa Cruz County Grand Jury investigates the district’s practices.
“Our meetings (are) being consumed by a few issues,” Wyckoff said. “I believe there are far more important and pressing issues for the good and welfare of our district.”
Wyckoff and Kilgus said they are ready to move past the issues that have caused district meetings to run late into the night, sometimes more than four hours at a time, in the stuffy confines of the district’s office that doubles as meeting room.
“I want to work with the board members. I don’t want to alienate them,” Wyckoff said. “I want to work with other board members as a group — we don’t want to work independently.”
Rob Hansel, president of the board, suggests online commentary has contributed to the issues.
“I really hope (board relations) will improve,” he said. “With all the (comments) on the Press-Banner Web site, they’re very hurtful and create a lot of ‘this side’ and ‘that side’ of things.”
Kilgus, especially, said he is ready to put the problem of Lake Boulevard behind the board, to look instead at long-term capital projects to keep water flowing to the district’s 500 customers.
The board has wrangled with the problem since Lake Boulevard washed out and the Lake Boulevard Road Association, with some help from the district, repaired it but left the circular system capped at two ends, rather than reconnecting it.
Kilgus’ frustration built as the board spent hours debating the merits of connecting a water line beneath Lake Boulevard and ways to secure funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The board reached a stalemate — a 2-2 vote on the issue — at its last meeting, and with a looming November deadline to secure the funds, it appears the district will not be able to use FEMA funding to loop the system.
Hansel, who voted for the fix along with Bill Smallman, said he’s disappointed that the board did not agree, but he thinks the matter is probably in the past.
“I think it was a bad decision on their part,” he said. “I think it was irresponsible not to connect the loop system.”
Lois Henry was excused from the vote because a conflict of interest.
At this point, however, Hansel said, the board will look toward mending the district’s leaky system.
“We will be moving on,” Hansel said. “We do need to focus on the water tanks. That’s our number one priority.”
Because of tight finances, Kilgus and Wyckoff think the district must float a bond to keep the system working.
The district has replaced about a third of the failing pipes in the district with copper pipes, Kilgus said. A survey of water tanks by vocal community member Ran Bendori found that the water system loses about 30 percent of its water, Bendori said.
The district also needs a new filtration system at a cost of at least $30,000, Hansel said.
Another problem has been communication between staff and board members.
District general manager Mike Eggleston has been maligned by Hansel, who has said publicly that Eggleston withholds information from residents of the district.
That has not been the experience of Wyckoff and Kilgus, however.
“I believe the staff is honest and hardworking,” Wyckoff said. “I do not believe staff has misled us in any way.”
Meanwhile, the Grand Jury has attended nearly every recent meeting of the water district’s board of directors and appears to be thoroughly researching the district’s practices.
Kilgus and Wyckoff are hopeful that the investigation and accompanying suggestions will help the district.
“I believe we need to get back to long-term solutions and encourage the community to become more involved,” Kilgus said.