Fewer governing directors for the Santa Clara Valley Water
District means diluted South County influence on the region’s water
politics. Or perhaps it will not.
It depends which South County board representative you ask.
Gilroy – Fewer governing directors for the Santa Clara Valley Water District means diluted South County influence on the region’s water politics. Or perhaps it will not.
It depends which South County board representative you ask.
Former Gilroy mayor and retired farmer Sig Sanchez thinks the water district, which provides flood protection and water service to 1.8 million county residents, can do without his seat on its seven-member board of directors.
Sanchez holds one of two county-appointed “at-large” positions that traditionally represent the competing interests of north and south counties. Both seats are slated to vanish in 2009 under state legislation, approved last year, that freed the water district’s budget from county oversight.
“If I was playing a political game I would have supported a seven-member board,” Sanchez said Wednesday. “But you still have a representative for South County.”
The reference to District 1 Water Board Representative Rosemary Kamei came one day after Sanchez voted against exploring ways to retain the at-large positions. Kamei was among five board members who voted to study the possibility of retaining the seats by adding two electoral districts or by electing them on a countywide basis.
“I don’t think it would be a bad thing to have seven members since we are a part-time board and there are an increasing number of things to do,” Kamei said Wednesday, adding that “there are advantages” for the South County area.
“That was why it was set up that way to begin with – so the position could look into issues in that area,” she said.
The at-large seats were created in a 1968 merger between the Santa Clara County Flood Control and Water District, formerly operated by the county, and the voter-created Santa Clara Valley Water Conservation District. Under the terms of that merger, supervisors retained the power to appoint two board members and review the budget of today’s Santa Clara Valley Water District.
Kamei proposed salvaging the at-large positions held by Sanchez and board chair Tony Estremera by creating two new electoral districts. She said that Sanchez’s seat could overlap with District 1, a sprawling area stretching from Los Gatos to the southern tip of Santa Clara County, while Estremera’s seat could overlap with the county’s urbanized northwest core.
Any redrawing of electoral lines would cost $100,000 and potentially as much as $500,000, Sanchez said, pointing to figures from a water district staff memo.
Adding two more elected seats could also mean an extra $200,000 or more in election costs every two years, according to Larry Wilson, the only other water board director to vote against the study.
“The county has five supervisors and they seem to do a good job,” he said in a Wednesday phone interview. “I don’t see why the district can’t get by with five as well.”
Any plan to save the seats would require a new round of state legislation. Assemblyman Joe Coto (D-San Jose) sponsored the 2006 bill eliminating county budget oversight of the water district. He could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.
The water board will form a subcommittee in coming weeks to explore options for retaining the at-large positions. Water district officials believe the redistricting process could be complete by November 2010.
The census of that year would trigger another redistricting study “almost immediately after” the district wrapped up the proposed effort to redraw electoral boundaries, according to the staff memo.
