Water district ponders involving city, Golden Hills in decisions
“The elephant in the room … is the lack of trust between our agencies,” Jay Schlosser, development services director for the city of Tehachapi told members of the board of directors of Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District at a May 18 meeting.
Along with a number of items of business on the 138-page agenda, the board was considering an item the city and Golden Hills Community Services District have pushed for since last year — creating a standing committee to consider the district’s priority for selling imported water in years when the demand exceeds supply.
Schlosser and Joe Hughes, an attorney who represents both Golden Hills and the city, were among those to address the board as it considered an agenda item titled “establish procedure to consider revisions to future water sales priority ordinance.”
Prior to that item, the board heard from its own attorney, Robert Kuhs, who explained the
difference between ad hoc and standing committees in a twopage memo. The district has used an ad hoc committee of two board members to draft the water priority ordinance and present it to the board for approval.
Instead, the city and Golden Hills would like the board to set up a standing committee to include board members and stakeholders and to “collaborate” on the priority ordinance.
Such a standing committee would be subject to Brown Act requirements and open to the public. Meetings of ad hoc committees are generally less formal and not required to meet publicly.
Perhaps the real elephant in the room was the fact that the district has sued the city over its approval of Sage Ranch and other residential developments, and the city believes the district prioritizes agriculture over M&I (municipal and industrial) customers, even though nonagricultural property owners pay a larger share of property tax to support water importation.
“We do believe that M&I (should be) a higher priority than agriculture,” Schlosser said. In a year when there is not enough imported water to meet all requests, he said the city believes agencies seeking to buy water for recharge (to store in the ground for future use) should have higher priority than current-year ag use.
In another exchange, when Hughes said that other water agencies he represents have standing committees comprised of multiple stakeholders, board President Robert Schultz made a reference to the conflict between the water district and the city (over the Sage Ranch approval). Hughes said he would not comment because of the pending litigation.
Matt Vickery, speaking on behalf of Grimmway Farms, noted that in the current year — with the allocation from the State Water Project greatly reduced — the priority ordinance approved by the board served M&I requests 100 percent “before ag gets a drop.”
That was true as far as the current year needs for the two M&I customers. But Golden Hills previously expressed concern that the ordinance deprives it of access to imported water because “conjunctive use” water was prioritized below agricultural water. And the city hoped to buy even more water for recharge.
WHERE THINGS STAND
The district has asked certain stakeholders — the city, Golden Hills and Grimmway — to propose written changes to the water priority ordinance. At the meeting, Vickery said Grimmway is working on a response. The city and Golden Hills jointly responded, but did not propose written changes, and instead asked that a standing committee be formed by getting “the stakeholders around the table.”
The board took no action on the matter with Schultz noting that the district awaits the written proposal of changes to the ordinance.
There is no news on the district’s litigation against the city. The action was transferred to Sacramento Superior Court at the request of the city earlier this year, but a search of that court’s filings does not yet show the case.