Consolidate water boards across California

Why are there some 1,286 water districts and companies in California, ruled by elected and appointed officers, many tons of of that are within the 4 counties lined by our newspapers in Southern California?

A naif would possibly say with a purpose to present native management over how agricultural, city and suburban residents get entry to essentially the most treasured useful resource within the West.

Given current information of malfeasance at astounding ranges in these essential and but little-noticed and secretive bureaucracies, a cynic would possibly say they exist with a purpose to present wildly excessive salaries for his or her electeds and their managers — and that’s earlier than, even, the unlawful corruption wherein too many of those officers visitors.

By our lights, the cynic would sadly be appropriate.

Authorities fraud thrives in darkness. Frankly, we — the press — are a part of the issue. Even earlier than contraction within the newspaper business, it was arduous sufficient to get reporters out to the tons of of Southern California metropolis councils, planning commissions and faculty boards.

Water boards? Town editor needed to have a very sizzling agenda merchandise, or a very gradual information day, to have the ability to afford spending a reporter’s shift on masking a gathering like that.

These days? Nicely, it’s even harder.

However the final a number of years of award-winning reporting by Southern California Information Group workers writers Joe Nelson, Jason Henry, Scott Schwebke and others into pay-to-play misconduct on water boards in our area exhibits simply how essential it’s to analyze how these companies function, and the way native politicians make them profit their very own pocketbooks reasonably than merely getting water to circulation effectively by means of the pipes.

Case very a lot in level is Nelson’s most up-to-date story, reported earlier this month: “A federal investigation into corruption in Baldwin Park has revealed {that a} former councilman allegedly agreed to assist the town’s  deposed police chief receive a seat on a Rialto-based water district board in change for guarantees that the councilman could be employed to a high-paying administrative publish within the district.”

Extra: “The alleged quid professional quo scheme between then-Councilman Ricardo Pacheco and ousted Police Chief Michael Taylor was revealed in paperwork unsealed by the U.S. Division of Justice on Friday, Oct. 7, in its case towards former San Bernardino County Planning Commissioner Gabriel Chavez.”

Chavez has agreed to plead responsible to a federal bribery cost for appearing as an middleman for payoffs from hashish corporations to Pacheco, however neither Pacheco nor Taylor has been charged in reference to actions associated to the West Valley Water District, which serves 82,000 prospects within the communities of Bloomington, Colton, Fontana, Rialto, components of unincorporated areas in San Bernardino, and Jurupa Valley in Riverside County.

The main points are price studying, and we encourage you to. Taylor subsequently engineered the hiring of Pacheco to a newly created assistant normal supervisor’s publish paying almost $190,000 a yr, the DOJ alleges. Query: Why would the assistant boss of a water district serving a tiny fraction of Southern California be paid a king’s ransom of a wage in a job that didn’t even exist till not too long ago? Reply: As a result of with the ability to function primarily in secrecy facilitates revolving-door backscratching on the a part of native pols in want of make-work jobs that assist the existence to which they’ve develop into accustomed.

Giant sizes under no circumstances ensures effectivity or transparency on the a part of public utilities. Instances in level: the town of Los Angeles Division of Water & Energy, rife with inflated salaries on the one hand and easy corruption on the opposite, and PG&E, the official wildfire-igniter of the Golden State.

However the patchwork of tiny water companies, lots of them established a century and extra in the past, that (supposedly) serve Californians makes it far too simple for the unscrupulous to line their pockets on the ratepayers’ expense. Certainly there have been many high quality native public servants on their boards over time. However the temptation is clearly too nice for the dishonest few.

It received’t be simple — in reality, will probably be complicated, and take many years. However consolidation of the huge variety of these companies right into a manageable few dozen at most in our area is the one means to make sure that the corruption is stored in verify.