Powerful California Water Influencer Birmingham Resigns Westlands Post

Longtime Westlands Water District Normal Supervisor Tom Birmingham introduced Wednesday that he’ll retire as of Dec. 31.

“I’m retiring with excessive pleasure within the issues Westlands had achieved during the last 20 years,” he wrote in an electronic mail announcement.

Birmingham had confronted the probability {that a} newly-elected majority on the Westlands board was poised to interchange him after the brand new members had been seated on Dec. 2.

As a substitute, he’ll step down from the district he has served for greater than 36 years, in accordance with a Westlands announcement.

Birmingham’s Severance Totals Extra Than $660K

It’s anticipated that Birmingham will take with him a wholesome severance of at the least $664,000.

In 2020, Birmingham earned $442,196 in pay and $55,633 in advantages for a complete package deal of $497,892, in accordance with Clear California, an internet site that tracks public worker compensation.

Per his contract, he’s to obtain a severance based mostly on his month-to-month wage multiplied by the months left in his time period. In Dec. 2021, the Westlands board renewed his contract, a full 12 months earlier than it was set to run out, by means of November 2024.

That contract renewal was a main bone of competition amongst Westlands’ growers who had change into more and more pissed off with Birmingham’s administration type and focus lately.

Growers stated they felt new concepts for regionalizing water provides had been ignored by Westlands’ administration and that Birmingham continued to give attention to litigation and laws versus collaboration with different districts and neighborhood teams.

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The ‘Change’ Board Election

Pissed off growers shaped a coalition that efficiently ran a slate of candidates within the latest election giving the “change” group a five-member majority on the nine-member board.

And so they made no secret of their want to interchange Birmingham.

“A change in management is foundational,” stated Sarah Woolf, who as soon as served on the Westlands board and who helped set up the “change” coalition.

Past that, the group had 4 important targets:

• Urgently creating extra groundwater recharge.
• Offering growers with clear and constant pumping laws.
• Creating a plan that incentivizes farming alternate options.
• Bettering relations with different water districts, deprived communities, and environmental and ingesting water advocacy teams.

Birmingham had overseen Westlands throughout a time of serious change in California’s water world, together with larger restrictions on exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which Westlands depends on virtually completely.

The water world turned much more sophisticated beneath the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Administration Act, which can pressure restrictions on groundwater pumping.

The district’s gradual and less-than-innovative response to SGMA was a significant impetus for Westlands’ growers to take motion, in accordance with Woolf.

The brand new board is anticipated to nominate an interim common supervisor and start the seek for a everlasting alternative after they’re sworn in subsequent month, Woolf stated.