LETTERS (Continued from page 25)
duction is now threatened and majestic trees are being cut down as they die. Instead of building the very expensive new railway, how about re-establishing normal weather? Good luck with the desal idea; in Saudi Arabia, the underground reservoirs have collapsed and soon that will happen here unless normal weather and rain returns. Morten Wengler Malibu
Almost Perfect
Carolee Krieger put it perfectly (“Unprecedented Drought,” MJ #22/41) when she wrote, “Tom Mosby is among the best of water managers, if not the best. He is honest, knowledgeable, dedicated, and always puts customer ’s interests first. We need his experience to guide us through this water crisis.” Her sentiments echo some of the characteristics of what he has meant to me as an older brother. Tom (TJ) has helped guide me through life with sage advice, and he is a greatly admired uncle to my daughter. I respect his work ethic, loyalty, tenacity, and decision-making ability. His sacrifice, temperament, and ability to stay on topic has helped our family remain focused through many a crisis, including the loss of our parents when we were very young. I am not surprised by my brother’s desire to remain active with the Montecito Water District. I know his heart belongs to the community, and his knowledge and dedication will help guide the board to make the right decisions for Montecito’s water future. I encourage all voters to cast their vote for him. John Mosby Santa Barbara
Send a Message
My pals and I were sitting around, and one friend asked the other, “Who are you voting for president?” The recipient of the question smiled, shook his head, and said, “Well, I cannot vote for Hilary and I will not vote for Trump!”. The asker of the question pressed on, “What is the difference between ‘cannot’ and ‘will not’? The reply, “I am absolutely against Hilary’s policy, so I cannot vote for her, and I find Trump so distasteful as a person that I will not vote for him. That leaves me only one choice, that I vote for a third-party candidate in hopes that it will send a message to whoever becomes president that the victory was no mandate, and that whatever authority you may think you have is diminished by the few votes you actually received.” I agree.
30 MONTECITO JOURNAL
Vote for Gary Johnson; not just for president, but to send a message. J.W . Burk Santa Barbara
Fresh-Thinking Required
In an attempt to hear the latest news about desalination and to get my questions answered, I attended a recent community meeting sponsored by the Montecito Water District (MWD). Over an hour of the meeting was consumed by a recently hired consultant, who gave us essentially the same report as we heard from the MWD board last spring. The only change in the past several months is that MWD has arrived at an agreement to pay more than half a million dollars to the City of Santa Barbara simply as an “admission fee” to begin negotiation of a desal arrangement. How disappointing that MWD has made no progress in putting together an actual purchase agreement … and even more disappointing that the three members of MWD’s desal negotiating team, Messrs. Shaikewitz, Newman, and Mosby, hid behind the consultant’s report at this meeting and did not step forward to address the audience personally. As bad as that was, more frustrating and unsatisfying was the fact that these same gentlemen elected not to respond to any of the numerous follow-up questions posed by members of the public. Public speaker after public speaker spent up to three minutes each asking for answers and clarification without any response from the MWD board or its desal team of “experts.” MWD’s customers had turned out for a public discussion of desalination but left frustrated that no two-way dialogue would be permitted. What’s up? With the water board election just around the corner, it would seem the only real value of this meeting was for MWD and its desal team to do some one-sided electioneering in support of the status quo. I have concluded that the MWD needs some fresh thinking. Wicks and Plough have earned my votes. Regina Roney Montecito
Endorsing Floyd Wicks
The Montecito Water District is a local California water district that faces serious challenges. Enter Floyd Wicks, a 25-year Montecito resident and the former president and chief executive officer of American States Water Company and Southwest Water Company, two of the nation’s
largest investor-owned public water systems. He is a registered engineer with unparalleled experience in managing water systems in over 50 geographic locations across the United States. That’s why he has been endorsed by California’s water experts, listed below. The Montecito Water District needs board members [who] can lead us to solutions, rather than defending what they have and haven’t done. Those water expert endorsers are: John Bohn, former president and CEO of Moody’s and former Commissioner, California Public Utilities Commission; David Sunding, Ph.D., chairman of natural resource economics, senior advisor to President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors, University of California Berkeley; William “Bill” Dendy, former executive director State Water Resources Control Board, Deborah Coy, Coy Consulting, former Senior Water Analyst, partner, Janney Montgomery Scott Water Finance; Susan Kennedy, former chief of staff, governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Commissioner California Public Utilities Commission; James Markman, Richards, Watson and Gershon Water law specialist, city attorney; Scott S. Slater, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP Water law specialist, author California Water Law and Policy; Terry Foreman, MSE, former vice president CH2M Hill, manager TLF Consulting, LLC, Hydro geologist; Anthony Brown, MSE, Aquilogic, Inc., president, chief hydrologist. Time to Do Better Under the cover of a Public Information meeting, the residents of Montecito turned out on a windy night in mid-October to be informed of the status of desalination in Montecito. President of the Montecito Water District (MWD) Board, Dick Shaikewitz, turned the meeting over to an outside consultant to lead the audience through a prepared packet on the status of the desal talks between MWD and the City of Santa Barbara. The presentation purported to show areas of “alignment” (not “agreement”) in negotiations between the City and MWD, as well as those areas that are still “open issues.” Since negotiations have been stalled, it appears that the “areas of alignment” are nothing more than the City’s original non-negotiable items, which the MWD is now prepared to accept. These same items were presented to the community several months ago as reasons why MWD’s desal negotiating team of Shaikewitz, Newman, and Mosby was unable to complete an acceptable agreement with the City. Now
• The Voice of the Village •
these are called areas of alignment. Could this change have something to do with the current campaign for two seats on the MWD Board? Could the very reason that this recent meeting took place have anything to do with the fact that two members of MWD’s desal team, Charles Newman and Tom Mosby, are running for positions on the board? How, with outrageous stunts like this meeting, are we, the voters, able to make a proper decision? The issue facing Montecito voters in the upcoming board election is not, as Shaikewitz wrote in the Montecito Journal, which candidates know more about water, the Brown Act, or experience with Montecito Water. Rather, as Shaikewitz does get correctly, the issue is which candidates are more qualified. In his lengthy article, Shaikewitz does not say much to defend the record of the two MWD insider picks he recommends for the board. This is smart, as the facts are not on their side: lack of timely filing of a state-required Urban Water Management Plan; failed negotiations on a desal agreement with the City of Santa Barbara, and lack of cooperation with the Montecito Sanitary District to create a plan to recycle this community’s wastewater. This poor performance record does not justify maintaining the status quo at MWD, which electing Newman and Mosby would certainly do. As Shaikewitz points out in his article, Newman was “appointed” to the Board in July 2015. The same preparation, for which Shaikewitz lavished praise on Newman when he selected him (and recently), could certainly be applied by the two new candidates, Tobe Plough and Floyd Wicks. Except that… The difference is that Plough and Wicks would also bring extensive professional experience to the board, more so than any sitting MWD Board member. Yes, Newman was Shaikewitz’s “New Man” choice a little over a year ago, but the two now exhibit great difficulty in working collaboratively. Shaikewitz is publicly recommending Newman as a valued member of MWD’s “status quo” team, while Newman is openly campaigning for change. Ask yourself, “Which is it?” As for Tom Mosby, he is to be thanked for his long and dedicated career at the Montecito Water District. He left at a tumultuous time and should have stayed gone. His knowledge and experience did nothing to keep us out of the current water crisis. What Mosby brings to the District is a record of long service, not a background in what a
LETTERS Page 324 3 – 10 November 2016