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OCWD directors Dewane and Sheldon; now up for re-election and opposed by Leece and Daigle.
Vern: We (Surf City Voice and the Orange Juice Blog) have been critical of many members of the Orange County Water District for several reasons:
- their being “in the bag for” – in some cases even bought and paid for by – Poseidon Inc, the Connecticut-based company that is hell-bent on building a hug desal plant in Huntington Beach that will raise our water rates dramatically while polluting our coastline;
- their resistance to suggested reforms increasing transparency on the Board, such as video-streaming their Board meetings and limiting the number of unpublicized, morning-scheduled, “subcommittee” meetings where most of their serious decisions are made in relative secret;
- and their entitled WASTE of public dollars on various unnecessary things, including but far from limited to their stipends for all those arguably unnecessary subcommittee meetings.
Well, this is good timing – the Surf City Voice’s John Earl has just found and publicized the Board members’ expense reports for the last year or two. Good timing because two of the more egregious offenders – Shawn Dewane and Sheldon Smith – are up for re-election this week (challenged by our friends Wendy Leece and Leslie Daigle respectively.) Voters might want to look closely at those two reports in particular, and ask themselves if we taxpayers really want to keep paying for all these perks and junkets. And let’s get a reaction for Wendy and Leslie – would they be any better, and how can we be sure?
[A third reform-minded friend of ours, Robin Marcario, is also running to take the place of retiring Kathryn Barr; she’s also welcome to comment on these expense reports.]
John Earl:
These are expense reports obtained previously by the Surf City Voice for all current Orange County Water District directors. Listings for 2014 are incomplete. Audit pages for 2013 show the number of meetings claimed by directors versus the number of meetings actually attended. Readers will also be interested in my previous story detailing total benefits received by current directors, “‘Would you like a sandwich?’ Water directors keep their early meetings and bloated stipends.”
Stephen Sheldon
Director Sheldon 2014; Director Sheldon 2013
Shawn Dewane
Director Dewane Jan-Feb. 2014; Director Dewane 2013
Denis Bilodeau
Director Bilodeau Jan-Feb 2014; Director Bilodeau 2013
Roger Yoh
Director Yoh Jan-Feb 2014; Director Yoh 2013
Jan Flory
Director Flory Jan-Feb 2014;
Philip Anthony
Director Anthony Jan-Feb. 2014; Director Anthony 2013
Kathryn Barr
Director Barr Jan-March 2014; Director Barr 2013
Cathy Green
Director Green Jan-Feb 2014; Director Green 2013
Vincent Sarmiento
Director Sarmiento Jan-Feb 2014; Director Sarmiento 2013
Harry Sidhu
Director Sidhu Jan-Feb 2014; Director Sidhu 2013
– See more at: http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2014/10/expense-reports-for-ocwd-directors/
At one of those unpublicized morning “subcommittee” meetings, where the real decisions are made.
Dewane and Sheldon aren’t worth a much smaller amount of money than that!
I am running to fill Orange County Water District 1, Kay Barr’s position, which she has admirably held for thirty five years. Her expense reports demonstrate her commitment to saving the water district money. She has received the couple hundred dollars per meeting with no additional expenses.
As the District 1 representative I will attend and participate at the board meetings as well as have community meetings to better educate the public in ways to conserve water. I have removed our grass, over 2,000 sqft. and replaced it with drought resistant landscaping. We save over a $1,000.00 per year as we no longer need a gardener combined with the reduction in water usage.
I do not agree with the wasteful spending exhibited by some of the current water district members.
The proposal for a desalination plant is cost prohibitive costing three hundred times the amount per acre foot that it costs the water district to purchase from Metropolitan water. The adverse impacts to our environment are also a reason to question the private enterprise profiting from our public water district.