Directors and the manager of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District confronted their critics head-on last week in a tense, standing-room-only setting in the Felton Community Hall.
Lompico residents had assembled to press the water district to lift a special assessment, and others were drawn to the April 20 meeting by what one director called a “whirlwind” of controversy over proposed use of a herbicide in the Olympia Watershed in Felton. About 75 people jammed the community hall next to the Felton Fire Station.
The board never got around to the Lompico issue, or several other items on its agenda, as its six-hour meeting was punctuated by shouting matches and name-calling, with board members interrupting and shouting down speakers in the audience and at one point even threatening to have one speaker physically removed – and its manager calling another citizen a thief.
At one point in the meeting, Peter Lang of Boulder Creek, a former water district board member, told the board: “I’ve heard a citizen, a constituent, called a thief by the staff. I’ve heard this person who volunteered his time to be on a committee maligned, cajoled and bullied by two people on the board. And I think you have a serious problem with the way that you relate to the public.
“I think you need to show more respect, you need to be a little more tolerant of opposing views, because you seem to want to shut down views that aren’t in conformity with your preconceived notions. I urge you to be more receptive of public input, whether you like that input or not.”
A plan that included use of the herbicide glyphosate to eradicate French broom plant thickets in the Olympia Watershed had been pulled from the lengthy agenda, but opponents – including the citizen representative on the board’s environmental committee – showed up anyway to express their opposition to any use of glyphosate.
The state of California last month labeled the herbicide as carcinogenic, following similar declarations by the World Health Organization.
The board postponed until its May 18 meeting any decisions on a merit raise for District Manager Brian Lee, the fate of the drought surcharge and of the special assessment for Lompico residents, and also postponed reviews of its preliminary 2016-17 budget and its board policy manual.
The board did announce that a second presentation of its water rate study – the first step in determining the size of the expected multi-year water rate increases to begin later this year – would be at 6 p.m., Monday, May 1, at the Highlands Park Senior Center.
The draft plan to eradicate 19,000 French bloom plants in the district-owned Olympia Watershed near the Zayante Fire Station will get another look – and opportunity for public comment – at 10 a.m. Wednesday, May 3, at a meeting of the environmental committee in the board meeting room on Highway 9 in Boulder Creek.
The district had moved its regular monthly meeting from Boulder Creek to the Felton Community Hall, in an effort to be more accessible to Lompico residents. Lompico’s water district merged with the SLV water district a year ago, and residents have for several months been requesting that a special assessment be lifted, claiming it was no longer necessary.
The item was postponed because Director Bill Smallman had not yet heard whether he could vote on the issue. Board attorney Marc Hynes had said two months ago that because Smallman lived in Lompico and would benefit – along with the other 600 Lompico ratepayers – from a lifting of the surcharge, there might be a violation of state conflict-of-interest law if he participated in the decision. The state Fair Political Practices Commission has been asked to rule on the matter.
