At critical time, San Lorenzo Valley Water District will vote on trustees, new fee structure

The San Lorenzo Valley Water District’s ballot this fall tastes of its volatile reputation and the multifaceted dramas it has served up over the past several years. 

Two seats are up for election this fall on the five-member San Lorenzo Valley Water District board of directors. In normal times, the board sets policy and budget priorities for the district’s 8,000 water customers. However, the district has been operating without a permanent general manager or finance director for over a year, and an interim general manager’s contract expired in August. Board members’ responsibilities have broadened beyond the typical job description – at a critical time, too. The district is still working on recovery from the 2020 CZU wildfire, and $50 million in infrastructure damages it must figure out how to pay for. 

Voters will also decide Measure U, a citizen-initiated ballot question that asks customers to overhaul the district’s fee structure so that it leans more heavily on water rate increases instead of hikes to flat-rate charges to raise revenue for operations and maintenance. 

Four candidates are competing for the two open seats on the board, each familiar in their own way. 

Interim directors Bryan Largay and Alina Layng have entered the race as a slate, each hoping to get elected to the seats they were appointed to over the summer after resignations by directors Gail Mahood and Jayme Ackemann. 

Layng, who previously served on the district’s environmental and engineering committee, launched an unsuccessful director bid in 2022. She did not return Lookout’s requests for comment in time for our deadline. When Lookout spoke to Layng in 2022, the question of financing CZU repairs were still front of mind, namely replacing the pipelines that drew surface water from the region’s watershed. Without proper surface intake, most of the district’s water has come from its system of wells, which are sensitive to overpumping. 

Layng said then that the district needed to bring in more revenue, “but it’s really hard to tell ratepayers to give us more money.” 

“The only type of rate increase I could possibly think about voting for would be a tiered rate increase by house size and income,” Layng said then. “I don’t want customers to pick between food and water.” 

Largay has served as conservation director for the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County since 2012, a job he describes as handling “strategic-level planning and complex project development.” He assisted in creating the Highway 17 wildlife crossing and is working to develop a similar project over Highway 101 that connects the Gabilan and Santa Cruz mountain ranges.

Largay said he decided to run for a full term on the board of directors because he is “worried about our district and our water supply.” 

“We have a landscape that is unforgiving to infrastructure and a community that really needs water,” Largay told Lookout. “The way things have been going in addressing these issues has been one step forward, one step back.” 

Largay said his priorities are “fast-tracking infrastructure improvements” and hiring “capable professional staff” and finding a permanent finance director and general manager. The foremost “urgent” need, he said, is finding an interim general manager. 

“In the absence of a finance director and general manager, we see board members play-acting finance director and GM,” Largay said. “Right now, we have two board members writing checks, and all the substantial matters [typically handled by a GM] are being reviewed by the board as a whole.”

Former director Bill Smallman and resident Bruce Holloway enter the race as challengers to the two interim-incumbents. 

Smallman is eyeing a return to the board of directors after initially earning a seat in 2016. Smallman served a little over two years before the board censured him in 2019, which was followed by his resignation. It came after the water district banned use of glyphosate  herbicides. Smallman went on a neighborhood social media platform and referred to users of the product as “really stupid and lazy, and probably gay.” Smallman would eventually apologize for the comments, his mea culpa, according to the Sentinel, being that he was trying to “poke fun” at ranchers.

“If they took me literally, they might say, ‘I better not use this stuff because it might turn me, you know’ — it might make them gay or whatever, and they might take that seriously because of how stupid some of them are,” he told the Sentinel. 

A year before the censure, the board of directors considered, but eventually abandoned, an idea to sue Smallman for a Brown Act violation. According to the Press Banner, Smallman disclosed details to the media about a pending lawsuit the board discussed in closed session. Smallman did not return Lookout’s requests for comment by our deadline

Holloway, who made headlines earlier this year for his lawsuit against Santa Cruz County around the proposed use of March’s Measure K sales tax revenue, said he “doesn’t know” if he is running for the water district seat in earnest. He referred to his campaign as a “bashful candidacy,” motivated by what he sees as the district’s poor financial wherewithal and status quo political establishment. 

“I wanted to file so there was an alternative to the entrenched board majority that exists,” Holloway said. “I don’t know [if I’m running with the expectation to win]. Some people have told me I’m the only candidate they are going to vote for.” 

Measure U

Instead, much of Holloway’s time on the campaign trail has focused on pushing Measure U, which he crafted and petitioned to get on the ballot. 

Measure proposes removing the monthly $7.65 capital facilities charge that the district began levying on most customers in March, and capping increases of its flat maintenance and operations charges to 2% per year until 2049. 

“We think it’s regressive to impose these flat rates on customers without regard to income, property value or family size,” Holloway told Lookout. “We’re pushing back on the fixed rate structure. Taxing everyone the same does not promote affordability.” 

NOVEMBER BALLOT MEASURES: Find Lookout’s local and state coverage here

The district has argued its recent increases in flat service charges are critical to securing a steady, reliable revenue stream throughout the year, as opposed to water usage rates, which are volatile throughout the year. 

The opposition campaign, led by San Lorenzo Valley resident Jim Mosher, argues that the fixed rate charges are needed to complete the tens of millions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure improvements needed in the district’s system. In its opposition statement, the campaign acknowledges that Measure U would initially save most residential users about $17.32 per month, but the long-term costs of not addressing infrastructure needs are “much more.” The measure would cost the district about $1.5 million in its first year. 

An impartial analysis of the measure by the district’s counsel stated that if Measure U passes, the district “would need additional funds from other sources to continue providing safe, clean, and reliable drinking water.”

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