Running Water

Paul Rogers, the environmental reporter at the Mercury, watched yesterday’s Board meeting on the online video, I’m sure to see the discussion of term limits. But the parts that really grabbed his attention were the following two agenda items, which awarded raises to the SCVWD’s District Counsel and Clerk of the Board, making them the [...]

This morning’s Mercury had an editorial calling for term limits for the SCVWD Board. Not coincidentally, the agenda for this morning’s Board meeting (moved up from next week to go along with the budget workshops) included a discussion of term limits. I give Director Estremera credit for asking for this item on the agenda; no [...]

Then, only two hours after the end of the Board meeting, the Environmental Advisory Committee met. Most of their discussion was about the process required to get an item on their own agenda. All of the advisory committees meet at the pleasure of the Board. Their agendas are set by the Board, and the only [...]

The SCVWD Board started its budget workshop today. This morning was taken up by a financial overview, presented by Peter Ng. Here are the highlights. The Board was pretty accepting of these numbers, although there were questions about the ability of the District to spend the unprecedented capital budget proposed this year. After lunch, the [...]

This morning was National River Cleanup Day, sponsored locally by Hands on Bay Area: I helped out on the Guadalupe River between Woz Way and San Fernando. Nothing makes me hate smoking and plastic shopping bags more than picking them up on creek banks. There were about 30 volunteers, who brought back an impressive pile [...]

Last night’s candidate forum was well-attended, although I would have loved to have gone first, before all of the Shirakawa supporters left. I had good conversations with neighbors, and I’m happy with how I presented myself and my issues with the SCVWD Board. Scott Herhold has a column in today’s Mercury (unfortunately with HTML formatting [...]

The Willow Glen Neighborhood Association holds candidate forums for every important local election, and tonight’s meeting will feature the candidates for the County Supervisor seat as well as for the only contested seat on the Santa Clara Valley Water District Board. That’s right, this very one! The meeting is scheduled to run from 7 – [...]

After lunch and a closed session, the Board reconvened to hear a presentation by Joan Maher and former Director Greg Zlotnick on the Delta. It is their opinion that this current attempt to “fix” the Delta is going somewhere, and that Governor Schwarzenegger has a large amount of political capital invested in its success. The [...]