Farewell IID

Hello all, The following was my closing address to the public at the recent Social gathering to recognize outgoing IID directors held Thursday, December 1, which I was unable to attend:

Thank you for coming to share in this bittersweet moment involving Jim Hanks and me. That this has been an arduous, yet extremely productive time, is an understatement. We have both served with pride, honor, institutional knowledge, ethics, and integrity. We have honored and respected our fiduciary duties at all times through all of our votes.

I do not intend to belabor the issue, but I would like to remind all of you of my pledge when I took office ten years ago and how, with the exception of one major issue, I carried out each promise to a positive end. During my tenure:

We took the State of California to task and successfully filed a petition via the State Water;

Got the Resources Board to take full responsibility and subsequent action to address the environmental, health, and economic impacts of a shrinking Salton Sea. These efforts had a turning point Tuesday last when Jim Hanks and I voted to realize Kevin Kelley’s mission of procuring the funds to restore a “smaller, yet sustainable Salton Sea.” Contrary to the comments made by special interest groups on the right and left wings of the same bird, this action signifies an honest intent to bring action to a long-standing problem and it was not done to usurp the incoming board’s authority.

We passed the resolution to honor the PLAs despite much anguish and disagreement. Despite a new governing board’s action to overturn this important decision aimed at supporting the working class of Imperial County, an appeals judge ruled in favor of the first resolution, thus scolding the new board for its capricious actions and maintaining the validity of the first vote.

We passed a resolution to lower the retirement age for rate payers that allows for seniors to benefit from our Public Benefits Program’s discount on their power bills. This action helps those who are most economically vulnerable.

We lowered the municipal water rates to be equal to those charged to the farming community using the principle that all water users are equal and should be treated as such.

We made the decision to waive payments to rate payers during the difficult times imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic; this kept the lights on for all rate payers while they focused on their health and well-being.

We have continued to support geothermal exploration and expansion and look forward to seeing firms such as

CTR bring their longstanding efforts to fruition.

We successfully fended off Representative Maye and others’ efforts to expand the District’s authority to include Coachella. This posed a lethal threat to our balancing authority and our water rights.

We supported labor and the various associations through good and difficult times bearing in mind that the workers are, in fact, the lifeblood of the district.

We demonstrated our support for the business community and non-profit organizations that deliver much-needed services to the indigent by awarding the last of the Local Entity funds. Education, small business, and benevolent non-profits such as The Brown Bag Coalition, Feed the Need, Imperial County Food Bank, The Cancer Resource Center of the Desert, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Imperial County, and several ecumenical institutions were able to carry out their missions by receiving these funds.

And, we prevailed against numerous forms of litigation but, most saliently, the effort of the Abatti family to usurp the authority of the District and favor a select few who would replace the District’s fiduciary responsibility with a special-interest group favoring only a small portion of the water users.

My beloved friend and former IID board member, Ralph Menvielle once told me, ‘You work very hard as a board to formulate and pass policy that benefits all rate payers and water users. You ensue that administration implements this policy. You feel quite accomplished … then comes a new board beholding to different special interests and, voila! Your actions are voided and replaced by totally different ones.’ I have always kept this wisdom in mind.

As this new board takes the helm, I expect – not hope – that it will respect its predecessors’ actions and decisions, take the baton and run forward instead of reversing course, and continue to work on behalf of all rate payers, water users, and the employees of this wonderful institution.

Allow me to close in memory of my adored Kevin Eugene Kelley with some of his favorite words:

“May the road rise to meet you; may the wind be always at your back; may the sun shine warm upon your face; until we meet again….”