Water District Hire: Normal Procedures Bypassed

A
 
”
crisis
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in state water politics does not justify bypassing the Santa
Clara Valley Water District’s normal hiring process to hand one of
its elected overseers a lucrative agency job, according to South
County representatives on the utility’s governing board.
Gilroy – A “crisis” in state water politics does not justify bypassing the Santa Clara Valley Water District’s normal hiring process to hand one of its elected overseers a lucrative agency job, according to South County representatives on the utility’s governing board.

The latest round of rebukes against the agency’s Chief Executive Officer Stan Williams were leveled Tuesday by at-large member Sig Sanchez and District 1 director Rosemary Kamei, who represents the southern portion of the county on the board, including the cities of Gilroy and Morgan Hill.

The CEO ignited a public firestorm in recent weeks after appointing former board member Greg Zlotnick to a $184,000-a-year job as in-house counsel, dealing with high stakes political maneuvering surrounding the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. For 10 days in June, the state shut down water supply from the Delta, which provides half of the county’s water, to protect the endangered delta smelt fish. 

Though Williams admitted he erred in appointing Zlotnick without a competitive process and without alerting the board, he continues to defend the move based on the need to immediately engage in the debates surrounding the future of the Delta.

The board responded to Williams’ rationalization Monday by voting 6-0 to strip him of the power to hire 33-top managers without board approval, and to assume direct oversight of the agency’s chief financial officer, legal counsel and board clerk.

“I don’t totally agree that urgency should have been the sole factor to make the appointment without going through the normal interview process,” Sanchez said Tuesday. “I don’t think that single issue necessarily justifies the process that was used.”

The sentiment was shared by Kamei, who was on vacation when the mid-July appointment sparked public accusations of cronyism. 

“I think the Delta issue is urgent, but is not an emergency situation when you look at the time in terms of it taking a month or two months,” Kamei said, referring to the length of the hiring process. “The Delta is urgent and we need to move fast, but I think that I would have done it differently.”

Their comments came a day after Kamei and her fellow board members voted to strip Williams of his hiring power for “unclassified” employees, a group of 30-plus top managers at the water district. The positions oversee everything from flood control programs to water supply management to public outreach at the agency, which serves 15 cities and 1.8 million county residents. 

The agency’s board of directors has not been involved in the hiring process of any employees for more than a decade. The normal hiring process for unclassified employees involves soliciting applications from candidates within the agency – and, at times, externally – and screening them through a three-member panel of peers, according to Williams. The interview panel, whose membership can change depending on the nature of the position, sends the top three candidates to Williams for a final review.

Williams called Zlotnick’s appointment an “exception to the normal practice,” though it is not the first time the CEO, who has run the agency since 1994, has invoked his power to bypass the hiring process and make an immediate appointment. He said he previously re-hired a former district employee after she left the agency.

“This happened before but it’s not the normal practice,” Williams said, adding, “I appointed (Zlotnick) without the interview process based upon an assessment of the needs I saw and his credentials. I felt the urgency of the Delta crisis called for direct appointment.”

That urgency was brought home in June, when the region’s water pumps were shut down to protect a two-inch fish on the endangered species list. This summer water officials from across the state are wrestling in Sacramento over the future of the Delta water supply.

“It felt like a high stakes poker game and everybody was bringing in their professional players,” Williams said, “and we needed to ante up with the rest of them.”

Williams said Zlotnick struck him as the perfect candidate during a routine meeting in his office in mid-June. Zlotnick has served as the district board’s legislative and political point man since he was first elected to the body in 1996 to represent the District 5 region, stretching from Palo Alto to San Jose.

Zlotnick declined to comment Tuesday on the circumstances surrounding his appointment, saying he would “leave that to Stan.”

But he said the CEO “is absolutely right” in describing the state’s water as in crisis. 

“He wanted a full-time resource on the job, and as a board member I certainly couldn’t do that,” Zlotnick said. “He determined that I was the person he wanted for the job.”

As a board member, Zlotnick earned up to $28,000 annually in stipend and spent tens of thousands of dollars in travel expenses. His new position will cost taxpayers a combined $236,000. On Monday, the board of directors called for that wage package to be reviewed for fairness. Kamei said Tuesday that she would expect Williams to justify the salary and, if it falls outside the range of normal pay, to assign Zlotnick additional responsibilities. 

She and other board members also voted to require a competitive hiring process for all new unclassified employees, though they left Williams discretion as to whether or not to seek applicants outside the agency. Kamei voted in favor of that scenario despite calling for all unclassified jobs to be open to external candidates.

As she and other board members interviewed candidates Wednesday to replace Zlotnick, Kamei said she does not believe the controversy should cost Williams his job.

“You know, more than anything else, it was disappointing to me,” she said. “There’s certainly a level of decreased confidence … In terms of looking at his career for his last 13 years, there are some good things that he’s done, but I certainly don’t agree with all the things that he’s done. I think that we have to increase our oversight and certainly we’ve taken the steps to be able to do that.”