Now that public attention has been focused on the free-for-all at the Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD) with their hitherto bottomless reservoir of cash quietly lifted from the wallets of resident taxpayers, the board is slowly starting to respond—begrudgingly. While the board has decided that three executive officers who formerly reported to spend-happy CEO Stan Williams will now answer directly to them, and they have further limited Williams’s ability to hire top aides, this is merely using their finger to plug a hole in the dam holding back public opinion that is about to burst. It’s going to take more to satisfy a riled citizenry who are rightly outraged by what has been going on behind our backs at the SCVWD, and getting more so every day.
As for Williams, he has insulted the public by issuing a tepid, obviously coerced apology for the inside-job hiring of board member Greg Zlotnick to a staff position worth nearly a quarter of a million dollars per year. Hiring a board member is wrong enough, but to compound the infraction, he did so without following the usual procedure of advertising the job and taking applications from a pool of qualified candidates. The fact is, Williams really isn’t sorry, and the so-far silent Zlotnick, who was on the board and should have protected the public from such an odious maneuver, is still employed with his cushy job, which is a travesty. If this is what they think the public deserves, then both Zlotnick and Williams should be fired, and, certainly, Zlotnick should never be allowed to hold a position of public trust again.
The SCVWD has a staff of 800, too many by a third according to Scott Herhold’s excellent column yesterday, including 33 unclassified employees whose average income compares with Zlotnick. Why do we need all these extremely expensive employees at our water district? They have 20 people in their PR department alone. Why? Then there are all those excessive-in-the-extreme travel expenses that we discussed a few weeks ago that still haven’t been explained. (Board member Zlotnick led the charge, running up a whopping $70,000 in travel expenses last year.) What were they for and why so much? There have been seven secret board meetings with Williams. What were those about, in detail? Why is Zlotnick still employed? Why does Williams still have virtually unlimited power?
The county’s residents, who foot the bill, have a right to know the answers to all of these questions. We don’t need fake apologies from an overpaid CEO who has slipped the earthly bounds of the public purse strings. We cannot be satisfied with a board that meets in secret, makes a few adjustments that should have been made years ago, and then declares that the matter is under control. It’s not at all what we should be hearing from a body entrusted by the public with stewardship of such an important element of our existence. They spend too much money, there is no real oversight, and they keep their dirty little secrets from public scrutiny. Heads need to roll and the lavish spending must stop. Everything they do needs to be honest and open to those of us who have paid for their ride on the gravy train.
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A few weeks back when the subject of increased water tax came up, I asked if anyone knew what surplus the SCCWD has stashed in its financial reserves.
I didn’t find out but I’m guessing that its between a quarter and a half $Billion.
Maybe they have all this extra staff to find some way of using up that surplus.
Then there are all those excessive-in-the-extreme travel expenses that we discussed a few weeks ago that still haven’t been explained. (Board member Zlotnick led the charge, running up a whopping $70,000 in travel expenses last year.)
This is a bigger story than hiring a board member. What is this guy doing to run up this kind of an expense?
Why isn’t the Mercury News editorial board, Scott Herold, and the county Supervisors callig for an explanation?
Here is a hint as to what the expenses cover. CEOs, generally, have big egos, and inflated feelings of self-worth. I suspect this CEO fits that category, and most of these expenses are for satisfying his ego.
#1 Greg
Five members of the board are elected regionally and two are appointed by the SCC Board of Supervisors. Presumably the elected ones could be recalled or voted out of office in the next election, and this should definitely be a priority for the voters. The other two could be replaced by the supervisors.
There was a public oversight board from what I understand but it was “disbanded” a few years ago. The district was set up by the state legislature and I assume that they would have jurisdiction over the board (any lawyers out there know the score on this?). Other than that, I guess the SCC Board of Supervisors should be overseeing the operation, but they don’t appear to be doing anything at all.
There was a county grand jury investigation of expenditures at the water district in the last couple of years. They found a lot of overspending there but nothing seems to have been done about it. They need to investigate further.
So, the answer to your question is that no one has been watching this den of thieves, so they have been robbing the cookie jar. We need a snarling public watchdog group to go in there and look at how every penny has been spent and investigate the suspect activities of the CEO. The public needs to stay engaged and complain to their supervisors, state representatives and the district attorney. It’s pressure from an irate public that has brought the matter out in the open, where it belongs. We should also encourage the Mercury to stay focused on this issue on a daily basis and keep investigative journalists on it. Scott Herhold has been writing good stories about it too and I hope he continues.
I will keep the discussion going here for as long as it takes to find out all the facts.
Jack:
Keep digging and pressing this issue. Your coverage on this subject is better than anything that I’ve read in the MERC in quite a while. You deserve a raise!
I saw an ad the other day (I think that it was the Water District) that asked for proposals for a water conservation marketing plan. (Why don’t they go to San Jose State, Santa Clara U, and others and have the upper division graduate students and/or faculty put together some ideas through a semester long class project?)
PC
Screw all your suggestions, I’m running for the next open seat. What a deal—huge budget, great perks, no oversight.
A staff of 800, with 20 PR flacks. It’s not like they have to convince people that they need water. Jeez!!!
Maybe I can get a trip to Europe, or New Zealand to see their water and determine if it’s different from ours. That’s legitimate, right? For $70k I could travel in STYLE. Or, I could, like, go to Africa where there’s not so much water and see how that works. Maybe I could hook up with a National Geographic film team and get behind the scenes. COOL!!
Merge the SCVWD, the VTA and the MHP. Add the high salaries of the SCVWD with the low fare revenues of the VTA and the empty calendar of the MHP. By doing so, the taxpayers would have a thriving, profitable, customer-friendly agency serving the citizens of our beautiful valley.
If you think SCVWD is out of control, spending too much money and poorly operated with 5 elected Board members and 2 Board members appointed by SCC Supervisors who are not doing their job – then look very closely at VTA Board, finance, operations and BART proposal
– Board is appointed local elected officials who have no accountability and publicly state they have no responsibility to county or anyone except those who elected them Expenses are out of control and unaccountable elected officials will be long gone when BART disaster comes
– VTA is rated 1 of worst operated transit agencies in US
– VTA has $3 billion in un-funded current Light Rail and bus obligations per recent audit
– VTA is proposing to build BART without billions to pay in BART operating losses or billions in construction overruns which like airport BART causes all San Mateo all other transit projects to be canceled and service costs for years since cost were badly underestimated and revenue grossly overestimated
– VTA Civil Grand Jury Report http://www.sccsuperiorcourt.org/jury/GJreports/2004/BoardStructureFinancialMgmtVTA.pdf
The overriding financial problem facing VTA at present is that it cannot afford the cost to build
and operate a BART system to San Jose. Spending limited resources on BART could squander an opportunity to build, maintain, and operate a far larger network of transit options throughout the county as enabled by voters approving the ½ cent Measure A sales tax in 2000. The Grand Jury recommends delaying expenditures for BART to provide more immediate funding for other Measure A transit projects.
We need 100% elected SCVWD and VTA Boards run as open governments and accountable to the voters not closed door meetings and little public accountability or responsible financial management
Jack,
Thanks for the fine story on our out of control Water District. It’s information like this that turns taxpayers sour on how our money is spent by public and quasi-public agencies.
It appears as though the Water District is nothing more than a rich feeding trough for under-worked bureaucrats. Tell me something, who in the Hell does the Board report to… are they at the top of the heap, or do they report to a County executive?
Williams may have committed the offenses, but shame on the Board and the higher-ups for being asleep at the switch in terms of fiduciary oversight.
Jack,
Thanks for your reply and insight into the absence of “cookie jar police.” I only wish that Gerald Silva, our talented City Auditor, could audit the Water District.
To permanently fix the problem, I guess it would take a local measure to reign in the spendthrift bozos at the Water District.
If Scott Herhold and Jack Van Zandt ask too many questions of the SCVWD, they could end up in cement overcoats at the bottom of Calero Reservoir.
Hey Jack—Joe Judge was appointed to the Water Board by Zoe Lofgren in the early ‘80’s, and reappointed again and again by other Soupervisor Demos. Tony Estremera is the other appointed board member, also on for decades. What’s that all about? Whom do they represent? What’s their annual “salary”, perks, etc. Must be considerable for them to hang on for so long.
They must be a serious part of the problem at the Water District, so how does one get rid of these unelected, unresponsive positions, or at least change them for a new set of players? Maybe an even bigger problem is that taxpayers in all of the county pay for this monster district to “make” water for San Jose Water Co. to sell to its customers, many of whom already paid for the wholesale water they’re being sold—so that SJWC can keep its capital to invest in funds that return income monthly instead of investing it in dams, ponds, pumps, distribution—and empire. Digging more into this can of worms you’ve opened may well produce even worse outrages cooked up by this well-concealed institution. George Green
Dear Jack,
My apologies for changing the subject, but something happened that I’d like to share with you and your readers. I was posting an ad on Craig’s List for a friend of mine, who’s an animal rescuer. After I posted the ad, I noticed a posting from Meals on Wheels,
The Health Trust asking people to sponsor a senior because they needed help with pet food donations to feed their pets.
I was deeply sadden after reading the post about seniors having to choose between buying food for themselves, or buying food for their pets. I copied her ad and sent it out to my contacts in animal rescue, friends, family etc. Of course they all offered help, and the woman at Meals on Wheels called to thank me, as my fiance and I both offered to sponsor a senior’s pet.
Here’s the really sad part of all this. After Libby thanked me, and told me how deeply touched she was by all the offers for pet food donations, she made a very innocent comment about how she wished she could that kind of response, when she was trying to get volunteers to help with seniors, or get donations to keep their non profit going.
She told me a few horror stories about how many times seniors die alone in their homes, and no one knows for days or weeks. She talked about how lonely some of these folks are, and how hard it is for them to open a simple bottle of water without help. She mentioned how odd it was that the media writes stories about animals, long before they’d ever write about the plight of seniors. And when I got off the phone, I thought a lot about what she said, and you know, she’s 100% correct.
So Jack, would you please allow me to ask two things of you? Would you please phone Libby and speak with her, and then do a column? And second, could you please include Libby’s contact information in the column, so perhaps your readers would donate their time, money, or sponsor a senior’s pet by buying one simple bag of dry food a month?
I think people like Libby who work so hard to help the defenseless deserves our help. And secondly, you have a forum in which you could help those in desperate need.
Below is her contact info:
Libby Combs
Americorps-VISTA
Meals on Wheels
The Health Trust
1701 S. Bascom Ave Ste.B
Campbell Calif. 95008
408-961-9866 Phone
408-961-9869 Fax
408-799-2687 Cell
We love you George but as usual you got your facts 1/2 right to go along with your rambling angry rants against your enemies
What happened George did Joe and water district oppose your downtown plans or ?
– Joe Judge, began his service to the Santa Clara Valley Water District in 1986 when Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors appointed him as at large director to represent the North County. In 1996, voters elected him to the board to represent District 2, which includes central and downtown San Jose, portions of East San Jose, and Willow Glen. His tenure on the board has included a stint as vice chairman in 1995 and chairman in 1989, 1996 and 2004.
Joe currently owns and operates his own construction firm.
– Sig Sanchez has spent more than 50 years in public service, including stints as a Santa Clara County supervisor and mayor of Gilroy. An At-Large Director, he represents portions of Santa Clara County that were once the 1967 Gavilan Water Conservation District boundaries.
#10 Kathleen
Thank you for posting this information. Don’t worry about changing the subject for something this important. You have actually written a fine column yourself! Increasing public awareness is what SJI is for. I hope our readers will take note of what you say.
Thanks again.
#14 Jack, Wouldn’t a better role of SJI be to do locally, what George W. Bush has done globally?
Thank you Jack!
#15- I’m not sure what your point is, but these seniors, this non profit, and these animals really need the help. You couldn’t possibly know the difficulities these folks are facing, given the comment you just made.
Too bad there is such a lack of compassion toward things people don’t experience first hand.