#3 – You think these meetings drag on? Whoa. Try listening to them over and over and over.
Kampa, naturally, does not answer a number of important questions which do not require any intense research and advance preparation to answer. That’s the traditional excuse, it’s not on the agenda and the board/GM have not researched the matter and are unprepared to answer such explicit questions without advance notification so they can prepare. wow.
Questions like: how do you get the ARSENIC (which is common to all the wells) out of the groundwater production before serving to the public? How can our district purchase over $3,184 worth of MERCED RIVER WATER from the MERCED IRRIGATION DISTRICT yet pay only a $147 electric bill to pump it out of Lake McClure? Yet during the same time period have a $1,001 bill for ground well #2 electricity? How could KAMPA as the GM AND BOARD TREASURER actually have been paid about $60,000 over what he told the board his compensation was over that of his normal monthly salary? Why are dollar amounts bouncing around different accounts in district financial entries? (Easter is coming up…..is it like hiding eggs?) On and on it goes…..but the GM says….no questions or answers now, we’ll continue this to next month…..then the next emergency, critical matter, news, etc…takes priority while everyone attempts to digest another KAMPA-GANDA CAMOUFLAGED PAPER DUMP IN THE AGENDA PACKET OR ELSEWHERE. This is unreal. But is it unusual? Is such nonsense just amplified with the increasing authoritative jurisdictional layers of government? Or is the LDPCSD an exceptional case in its own weight class? Do other SPECIAL DISTRICTS run like this? If so might be a clue as to why the Little Hoover Commission has entertained a discussion on the proposal of ending them within 10 years?
YOUR LOCAL GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT AT WORK?
Yes and no.
Our local public agency (and the way it was designed to function) was hi-jacked by “special interests” under the guise of responding to a drought emergency and surreptitiously pursuing the creation of an “alternate source of water” (groundwater wells with grant funds) so as to EXPAND THE GROUNDWATER SUBSTITUTION PROGRAM and continue selling this touted “emergency water” outside the permitted area of the water license under which this district has always operated.
The LDPCSD was, is, and will continue to be exploited by this for-profit management company and its president and our current “remote GM”who was quietly returned to the Lake Don Pedro CSD in an effort to CONTINUE THE SAME OUTSIDE MERCED IRRIGATION DISTRICT PLACE OF USE SPECIAL BENEFIT WATER SERVICE TO THIRD PARTY LAND DEVELOPERS (TO WHOM OUR DISTRICT HAS NO LEGAL DUTY TO PROVIDE WATER SERVICE IN THE FIRST PLACE) JUST LIKE HE WAS DOING TWENTY YEARS AGO WHEN HE STARTED HIS INFAMOUS CAREER IN WATER!
(long sentence. almost like a frustrated exhale. but you already knew that? yeah? think I’ve heard this stuff before too.)
My best to you and yours, Lew
