Butte to appointRock Creek Reclamation District trustees after election gets canceled
OROVILLE » The Butte County Board of Supervisors will be asked to appoint board of trustees for the Rock Creek Reclamation District at Tuesday’s meeting, reversing an earlier action that established a time and place to hold a special election for the district.
Landowners within the Rock Creek Reclamation District filed a petition through the Clerk of the Board’s office on May 14 to hold a special election for the unexpired terms of the current serving trustees. Seven current serving trustees — Elvin Bentz, Hal Crain, Jonathan Lavy, Bruce McGowan, Dan Paiva, Darren Rice, and James Strong — were nominated in the petition.
The petition for the RCRD, which provides flood control services to approximately 4,644 acres of land in north Chico, was deemed valid and placed on the Aug. 11 Supervisors’ meeting agenda.
At that meeting, a time and location was voted on for the election. Supervisors Bill Connelly, Steve Lambert and Doug Teeter voted in favor of holding the election, with Tami Ritter voting no and Debra Lucero abstaining.
However, although the petition was filed with the Board of Supervisors, it was not filed on time with the Secretary of the Board of Trustees of RCRD, per Water Code section 50731.5. A legal notice was subse
quently published in the Enterprise- Record and Mercury-Register to officially notify the public that forms weren’t filed in time, and thus, no election would be taking place.
Instead of holding an election, Board of Supervisors will appoint trustees for the unexpired terms of the currently serving Board of Trustees of RCRD.
According to county counsel Bruce Alpert in an Oct. 6 memo, the Board of Supervisors can appoint any qualified person as a trustee, given person is a landowner in the district or a landowner’s legal representative. Those nominees include the aforementioned seven people nominated in the petition, but are not necessarily limited to them.
Board meetings are held at the County Administration Building, 25 County Center Drive, in Oroville. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, meetings remain closed to the public. Meetings can be viewed on the county’s website, www.buttecounty.net/boardofsupervisors/boardmeetings.