MWD supplies water for 19 million SoCal residents in six counties, including MWDOC. MWDOC sells MWD’s imported water, which comes from Northern California (through the State Water Project) and the Colorado River, to its 27 Orange County member agencies serving 3.5 million residents.

Given the political and ecological climate we now inhabit, it’s fair to ask our water agencies to explain their philosophy of water management.

And while the answer is rarely stated plainly, you can get a fuzzy but frightening glimpse of MWDOC and MWD’s standards by watching the video of MWDOC’s June 26, 2025 Water Policy Forum and Dinner honoring Troy Edgar, Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Under Secretary Kristi Noem, DHS—an umbrella department that oversees multiple federal law‑enforcement agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Border Patrol, as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—has, under the banner of national security, been widely documented by journalists, human‑rights organizations, and citizen videographers as carrying out racist, brutal, and indiscriminate actions against racially profiled immigrants and dissidents with impunity.

These operations have included what civil‑rights groups describe as unlawful detentions and “snatch‑and‑grab” style arrests (kidnappings), crackdowns on press freedom, unjustifiable beatings and shootings, and fatal uses of force that advocates rightly characterize as extrajudicial killings.

Thousands of non‑criminal adult and child migrants—and, in some documented cases, U.S. citizens and other lawful residents—have been held for weeks or months in harsh, overcrowded detention centers that led to at least 32 deaths since January 2025—a record number—including some operated without accountability by contractors in foreign countries, or deported under procedures that rights groups say are devoid of meaningful due process.

All of this began almost immediately after Donald Trump was sworn in as America’s 47th president on January 20, 2025, marking what he called the “Golden Age of America.”

I watched MWDOC’s dinner forum honoring Troy Edgar on YouTube. Afterward, I wanted to ask MWDOC board president Larry Dick, who hosted the event, and MWD Chairman of the Board Adán Ortega, who also attended to honor Edgar, about the stark contradictions between both agencies’ stated goals in the Climate Adaptation Management Program (CAMP4W) and their mutual commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (D.E.I.), and the Trump administration’s federal ban on even mentioning climate science or social and economic justice.

On one hand, MWD and MWDOC officially promote climate‑change adaptation, equitable policies, and workplace D.E.I. On the other, the Department of Homeland Security under President Trump openly embraces climate denialism, is developing a secretive and unaccountable police force marked by brutality and racial targeting, and is working to eliminate D.E.I. across government and the private sector. The disconnect is hard to ignore.

As I reported previously, I made several unsuccessful attempts to get answers from members of the MWDOC Board of Directors and from MWD Chair Adán Ortega. Nothing has changed on that front. However, I did speak on the matter before the MWDOC board on February 17. You can view the video of my presentation and read the slightly edited transcript of my remarks below.

Before you do, I want to clarify one potentially misleading statement I made during my comments to the board. I said, “We are not a fascist country by any means, but we have a fascist‑style administration.”

What I meant was this: the Trump administration is unmistakably operating with the characteristics of a fascist regime, but—despite its efforts—the vast majority of voting citizens (according to polls) continue to reject MAGA‑fascism. In hindsight, though, I think U.S. Senator Chris Murphy’s (D‑CT) remarks in response to the administration’s attempts to curtail press freedom through the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) capture the point even more precisely:

This is the federal government telling news stations to provide favorable coverage of the war or their licenses will be pulled. A truly extraordinary moment. We are not on the verge of a totalitarian takeover. We are in the middle of it.

Act like it.

Remarks by John Earl made to the Board of Directors of the Municipal Water District of Orange County, Feb. 17, 2026.

Thank you. My name is John Earl, and I published a newsletter called SoCal Water Wars on Substack. And, I wanted to, I had a few questions I wanted to ask, um, that I tried to get some answers to previously from Director Larry Dick and some others on the board regarding your June 26th,MWDOC dinner forum honoring Troy Edgar, the assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and soon to be the ambassador--I’m sure he’s very enthusiastic about it--to El Salvador. And given the commitment that I believe this board has, and some of you sit on the board at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California--to the Climate Adaptation Management Program for Water (CAMP4W), which is based on, fully on response to climate change and the science of climate change, and is also based on equity and inclusion. That’s part of it as well. And it’s sort of a one-water concept, which, that name isn’t in the nomenclature anymore, but it’s still essentially supposedly the same concept. And given the, uh, the antipathy of the Trump administration, the absolute denial of climate change, human induced or otherwise, his, hate for everything that has to do with equity, and excluding the words equity, equality, discrimination, or anything like that, or climate-change, from the vocabulary—there’s hundreds of words that are forbidden.

And given the policies of this administration to eviscerate democracy in our democratic republic and very openly. It would not be an exaggeration or hyperbole to call it a MAGA-style fascist administration. We are not a fascist country by any means, but we have a fascist-style administration. It’s very open about ending democracy, ending the right to vote—or not the right to vote, but the right to freely vote. And, anti-science, eviscerating FEMA, which is under the control of the Department of Homeland Security. Using ICE to commit all kinds of brutality against immigrants and treat them as the national security threat to this country. And you, Director Dick, you complimented Mr. Edgar for his handling [of his job] and said he was really needed at this time, considering our national security concerns. And the only concern he had [in mind] at that time was about immigrants, the “immigrant invasion.” I would like this board to please clarify for the public where you actually stand. Do you actually believe there is such a thing as climate change? It’s part of the program that you are linked to from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

Do you actually believe in equity? Do you actually believe in the fascistic program of Donald Trump and the Department of Homeland Security? This this is a time for you to speak up. This is a time for people to be either complacent and by their complacency be complicit, or it can be overtly complicit, as I believe you were, Director Dick, at that meeting. So does the board as a whole support the MAGA approach to water management? The defunding and everything else?Is climate change something you really believe in, or is this something that you, you use to justify projects like the tunnel project because you can say, ‘Oh, it’s to fight climate change?” Maybe that’s really not the, the motivation behind it. So I would appreciate some clarification, because I tried to get it from you and I think it’s time that you be held accountable for where you stand on the pressing issue before the whole world today.

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LA WATCHDOG - The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is a massive, unresponsive, and insular bureaucracy that lacks transparency and accountability to the ultimate end users, the Ratepayers. This includes homeowners, renters (through pass through rent increases), and commercial and industrial establishments.

Rather, as a wholesaler to 26 agencies and another 251 sub-agencies, MWD and its directors are pressured to limit its rate increase so that these public facing entities do not have to raise rates to a level that reflects the true cost of water, fearing pushback from Ratepayers.

MWD and its politically appointed board accommodate these agencies by dumping the increased costs onto property owners by levying a Special Property Tax that is buried in our Secured Property Tax Bill (see below) that only comes once a year. This may be in violation of Prop 13.

A recent CityWatch article, Metropolitan Water District’s Billion Dollar Property Tax, indicated that MWD was proposing to increase this tax to $180 for a million dollar home (0.0018% of assessed value), a more than fivefold increase from the 2024 level of $35 (0.0035%).

In a memo to MWD’s politically appointed directors, the General Counsel asserted there were no plans to increase this tax. On the other hand, a 2024 MWD planning document assumes this substantial rate increase through 2034 while limiting rate increases to 5%. Over this period (2025-34), this property tax would raise almost $13 billion, all without voter approval.

MWD claims that this tax increase is essential to its “financial integrity” over the next ten years. There is, however, no analysis to back up this claim. As it is, MWD has a triple A rating from the three main credit rating agencies, a rating that is higher than the federal government. MWD also has over $1.3 billion on its balance sheet, a nice slush fund.

The alternative is to forego any tax increase and cover any additional expenditures by increasing the water rates. This would send a signal to Ratepayers to conserve water, a major goal of the State, the City, the County, and the environmental community.

Rather than continuing to stonewall us, MWD should conduct a series of public meetings to explain the economics behind its desire to raise almost $13 billion over the next ten years through property taxes.

MWD can also explain its reasoning why it is exempt from the limitations of Prop 13. But just because the district “says it is so doesn’t mean it’s so.”

At the same time, MWD cannot sidestep the State legislature. It needs to send a mandatory notice to Mike McGuire, the President pro Tempore of the State Senate, and Robert Rivas, the Speaker of the Assembly, so that they and the Legislature are informed about this ten-year tax increase and determine whether it is our best interests.

It is time for this enterprise with over $13 billion in assets to open its books to the public and develop a forthright and continuing dialogue with the Ratepayers.

**********

Note: Our property tax bill has, in addition to the General Tax Levy (1% of Assessed Value), twelve other line items, four for voted indebtedness (includes MWD) and eight for direct assessments. These line items increase our tax bill by 25%. Pretty easy to bury the MWD tax.

Editor’s note: This informed commentary was originally published in CityWatch and is reprinted here with permission.

(Jack Humphreville writes the LA Watchdog column for CityWatch, where he covers city finances, utilities, and accountability at City Hall. He is President of the DWP Advocacy Committee, serves as the Budget and DWP representative for the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council, and is a longtime Neighborhood Council Budget Advocate. With a sharp focus on fiscal responsibility and transparency, Jack brings an informed and independent voice to Los Angeles civic affairs. He can be reached at lajack@gmail.com.)

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Related articles:
LA CityWatch: Metropolitan Water District’s Billion Dollar Property Tax;

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MWD supplies water for 19 million SoCal residents in six counties, including MWDOC. MWDOC sells MWD’s imported water, which comes from Northern California (through the State Water Project) and the Colorado River, to its 27 Orange County member agencies serving 3.5 million residents.

What do our water districts stand for in terms of water management philosophy and policies, including ethics, transparency and politics?

It’s a fair question, and answering it honestly requires water‑board officials to drop the pretense that political partisanship somehow stops at the edge of their dais. A good place to watch that illusion fall apart is at one of their semi‑private, corporate‑sponsored water‑buffalo forums—events the general public rarely hears about.

A few notes about these gatherings. They’re always held in the ballroom of an upscale hotel. Before dinner, you can buy a drink at the bar just outside the doors, giving you a chance to mingle with the Who’s Who of Southern California water buffalos and maybe overhear a few interesting conversations not meant for public ears.

But it will cost you.

Dinner typically runs about $150—$160 if you’re not a member of the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA, but that’s another great story). For that price, you get a nicely plated serving of high‑end airline food, a slice of cheesecake for dessert, and an endless supply of State Water Project water at no extra charge—unless you count the $150 infrastructure fee you already paid.

Seating, much like voting power on the MWD Board of Directors, is determined by wealth. The biggest players buy entire tables positioned closest to the stage, where the evening’s honored guests will speak. A table for eight goes for roughly $1,350.

This is more or less what you can expect at the upcoming Municipal Water District of Orange County Water Policy Forum and Dinner 2026 at the Westin Hotel in Costa Mesa, where MWD’s newest general manager, Shivaji Deshmukh, will be the guest of honor.

It’s not an event designed for people struggling to pay their water or sewer bills, and your absence will go entirely unnoticed. Few people do, but you can watch a recording on YouTube days or weeks later from the comfort of your home, though it’s far less revealing than sharing cheesecake with the people who raise your rates every year.

ICE’s Deputy Secretary’s welcome by MWDOC and MWD

I’d had more than enough cheesecake at these events over the years as a comped journalist and member America’s bottom one-percent, so I skipped the chance on June 26, 2025, to watch Troy Edgar, Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, take the stage as the honored guest at MWDOC’s Water Policy Forum and Dinner.

Besides, I probably would’ve been arrested before I ever made it to dessert. Full disclosure—SURPRISE :)—I’m no fan of DHS or ICE, especially in their current Trump 2.0 incarnation. And if you’re wondering why, just look at the now‑infamous video of the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent on a Minneapolis street on January 7, 2025.

That horrific event occurred only days ago, more than six months after MWDOC’s celebration of Edgar and DHS. But the agency’s racist, brutal, and indiscriminate attacks on immigrants—and on U.S. citizens who were either people of color or who protested those tactics—had been underway almost from the moment Donald Trump was sworn in as America’s 47th president on January 20, 2025, marking the start of what he called the Golden Age of America.

But I did watch MWDOC’s event honoring Edgar—and the agency that had already spent six months perpetrating a reign of terror against immigrants and others in cities across America—on YouTube. The video is posted below.

I had long considered asking MWDOC board president Larry Dick—who hosted the forum honoring Edgar and frequently emcees district events—along with MWDOC director Bob McVicker (until recently the board president) and MWD board chair Adán Ortega, about the glaring contradiction between MWD’s stated goals and the partners it chooses to elevate.

On one hand, MWD promotes climate‑change adaptation, long‑term water sustainability, equitable policies, and workplace D.E.I. On the other, the Department of Homeland Security under President Trump openly embraces climate denialism, is developing a secretive and unaccountable police force marked by brutality and racial targeting, and is working to eliminate D.E.I. across both government and the private sector. The disconnect is hard to ignore.

Finally, my horror over the murder of Renee Good pushed me to act. On January 9, I sent separate but nearly identical media inquiries to Dick, McVicker, and Ortega. A few hours later, Ortega replied by email, directing me to call the MWD press office “with any inquiries to inform your editorial.”

I followed up with an email to the press office instead—as I usually do—but received no response. McVicker and Dick didn’t respond either, even though I also texted Dick. I tried again with all three on January 12 and still haven’t heard back.

The most recent inquiries—essentially the same, but with an added question for Dick about his use of the phrase “our current national security priority”—are posted below. They outline the issues in more detail.

Note: neither of the emailed media inquiries contained photos or screenshots. I have added them for context.

I ask readers to decide if the public deserves answers or not. You can leave your vote in the poll at the end of this article.

Media Inquiry (to Adán Ortega):

On June 26, the Municipal Water District of Orange County (MWDOC) held its corporate‑sponsored Water Policy Forum & Dinner in Costa Mesa. The honored keynote speaker was Troy Edgar, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security—the agency responsible for ICE, FEMA, and other national‑security and disaster‑response functions. By that date, the DHS/Trump administration’s anti‑immigrant policies, its hostility toward D.E.I., its politicization of federal funding, its cuts to FEMA, its removal of climate‑change planning from federal policy, and its increasingly aggressive, brutal and legally questionable ICE enforcement practices were all well documented. DHS had also launched a recruitment campaign (July 2025) using imagery and slogans widely criticized as racist and authoritarian (or Neo-fascist). These policies have continued, most recently underscored by the killing of a Minneapolis resident by an ICE agent.

At the MWDOC event, facilitator Larry Dick, representing MWDOC, offered the following introduction for Deputy Secretary Edgar, setting the tone for the evening:

Larry Dick: Tonight as I mentioned, we are beyond delighted to welcome one of the most distinguished and influential speakers ever to join us at a water policy dinner. His presence here, given our current national security priority, is a powerful statement of his dedication to public service and to this region. When we ask Brett if he would make the ask for us, he didn’t take him long to say yes, and we appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. True. Troy Edgar serves as a deputy secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security, where he helps oversee critical operations and strategy impacting cybersecurity, emergency response, border security, and, importantly, National infrastructure, including water resilience. But before his federal service, he built his leadership foundation right here in the county. As a city council member and mayor for the City of Los Alamitos. He also served on the Orange County Sand District Board, where he rose to the position of chair, helping to guide essential infrastructure projects for the region. He’s a proud Navy veteran, a former CFO for DHS, and an executive with both public and private sector expertise. Speaking for myself, I’m delighted to see people in government that have signed the front and the back of a check. Troy’s career reflects a rare combination of local accountability and global impact. We’re so grateful to have him with us tonight, especially given these current events and the responsibilities that rest on his shoulders. Please join me in giving a warm Orange County welcome to our keynote speaker, Deputy secretary Troy Edgar.

Following the event, Metropolitan Water District Chairman Adán Ortega, reported that he attended the dinner and that Deputy Secretary Edgar:

“provided insights into the new administration’s policies and their implications for California’s future. Discussions included recent federal initiatives aimed at enhancing water infrastructure, ensuring sustainability, and addressing the unique challenges faced by our region.”

Despite these statements, none of the contradictions between DHS policy and MWD’s self-declared climate‑action and DEI commitments were acknowledged or addressed. Nor was there any mention of the escalating brutality directed at immigrant communities—communities that make up a substantial portion of the population served by MWD and MWDOC.

Question for Agency Leadership

How should Southern California ratepayers as a whole interpret such unqualified praise by the managers of its precious water supplies for the work of a federal agency, including its assistant secretary, that is demonstrably opposed to their own best interests--as officially described in MWD’s heralded Climate Adaptation Master Plan for Water (CAMP4W), including its declared commitment to equity?

This mandate upon MWD to overcome bigotry and bias includes its commitment to the state-mandated reform of its D.E.I. workplace policies.

A response is requested as soon as possible.

Thank you,
John Earl

Media Inquiry to Bob McVicker and Larry Dick

Sent to MWDOC

On June 26, the Municipal Water District of Orange County (MWDOC) held its corporate‑sponsored Water Policy Forum & Dinner in Costa Mesa. The honored keynote speaker was Troy Edgar, Deputy Secretary of the Department of homeland Security—the agency responsible for ICE, FEMA, and other national‑security and disaster‑response functions. By that date, the DHS/Trump administration’s anti‑immigrant policies, its hostility toward D.E.I., its politicization of federal funding, its cuts to FEMA, its removal of climate‑change planning from federal policy, and its increasingly aggressive, brutal and legally questionable ICE enforcement practices were all well documented. DHS had also launched a recruitment campaign (July 2025) using imagery and slogans widely criticized as racist and authoritarian (or Neo-fascist). These policies have continued, most recently underscored by the killing of a Minneapolis resident by an ICE agent.

At the MWDOC event, facilitator Larry Dick, representing MWDOC, offered the following introduction for Deputy Secretary Edgar, setting the tone for the evening:

Tonight as I mentioned, we are beyond delighted to welcome one of the most distinguished and influential speakers ever to join us at a water policy dinner. His presence here, given our current national security priority, is a powerful statement of his dedication to public service and to this region. When we ask Brett if he would make the ask for us, he didn’t take him long to say yes, and we appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. True. Troy Edgar serves as a deputy secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security, where he helps oversee critical operations and strategy impacting cybersecurity, emergency response, border security, and, importantly, National infrastructure, including water resilience. But before his federal service, he built his leadership foundation right here in the county. As a city council member and mayor for the City of Los Alamitos. He also served on the Orange County Sand District Board, where he rose to the position of chair, helping to guide essential infrastructure projects for the region. He’s a proud Navy veteran, a former CFO for DHS, and an executive with both public and private sector expertise. Speaking for myself, I’m delighted to see people in government that have signed the front and the back of a check. Troy’s career reflects a rare combination of local accountability and global impact. We’re so grateful to have him with us tonight, especially given these current events and the responsibilities that rest on his shoulders. Please join me in giving a warm Orange County welcome to our keynote speaker, Deputy secretary Troy Edgar.

Following the event, Metropolitan Water District Chairman Adán Ortega, reported that he attended the dinner and that Deputy Secretary Edgar:

“provided insights into the new administration’s policies and their implications for California’s future. Discussions included recent federal initiatives aimed at enhancing water infrastructure, ensuring sustainability, and addressing the unique challenges faced by our region.”

Despite these statements, none of the contradictions between DHS policy and MWD’s self-declared climate‑action and DEI commitments were acknowledged or addressed. Nor was there any mention of the escalating brutality directed at immigrant communities—communities that make up a substantial portion of the population served by MWD and MWDOC.

Question for Agency Leadership

How should Southern California ratepayers as a whole interpret such unqualified praise by the managers of its precious water supplies for the work of a federal agency, including its assistant secretary, that is demonstrably opposed to their own best interests--as officially described in MWD’s heralded Climate Adaptation Master Plan for Water (CAMP4W), including its declared commitment to equity?

This mandate upon MWD to overcome bigotry and bias includes its commitment to the state-mandated reform of its D.E.I. workplace policies.

Also, I have provided a complete transcript of Dir. Dick’s introduction to DHS Deputy Sec. Troy Edgar. Dir. Dick states, “His presence, given our current national security priority...”.

Question for Dir. Dick: at that time, June 26, 2025, what “current national security priority” were you referring to?

A response is requested as soon as possible.

Thank you,
John Earl
SoCal Water Wars

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The ability of Southern Californians to minimize and adapt to climate catastrophe depends on four key factors: the President of the United States and Congress, the Governor of California and the State Legislature, the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) and its General Manager, and the member agencies, like the Municipal Water District of Orange County and the San Diego County Water Authority.

Currently, as diligent news watchers know, the climate future for SoCal residents looks bleak on all fronts. Here’s why:

• On his first day in office, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, which bound nearly every nation except Iran, Libya, and Yemen in a collective—if imperfect—effort to confront climate change. In another executive order, he directed the Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service to “identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change” from their websites.

• More or less half of MWD’s ratepayers are Hispanic.Trump’s Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) anti-immigrant campaign, launched in January, continues in Democratic‑run cities across the country. Last June, Trump deployed 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 U.S. marines to Los Angeles to accompany ICE, which is run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in a provocative “public safety” operation designed to terrorize immigrants, suppress protesters, and create mini Reichstag‑like moments. DHS is also in charge of FEMA, which the Trump administration is dismantling. Previously, DHS national security and disaster prevention initiatives included taking into account the realities of human induced climate change, but any references to climate change have been eliminated from its playbook.

• California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom badly wants us to believe that he’s a progressive, a true environmentalist, and that he is our national leader in the fight against MAGA overreach. But he’s also perceived as a limousine liberal and is compromised by the state’s Big Agriculture industry and other corporate campaign backers. Newsom continues his campaign for the presidency. He strongly opposed Trump’s Los Angeles invasion and supported California AG Rob Bonta’s lawsuit challenging the invasion. But on water issues, like the Delta Conveyance and Sites reservoir projects, his views are the same as Trump’s. And he blocked a bill that would have required water guzzling AI data centers—an existential threat to water supplies everywhere in the world—to report projected and actual water use to regulators and suppliers.

• When MWD hired Adel Hagekhalil as general manager in 2021, it marked the first time in its history that it seriously valued inclusion in the workplace and sustainable water management policies based on environmental justice designed for an era of climate change. However, an inner power struggle led to Hagekhalil's unethical dismissal last January, despite an outside investigation that cleared him of any wrongdoing. Now, it appears MWD will revert to its previous policy of relative complacency over climate catastrophe.

During his first term in office Trump successfully rolled back over 100 environmental rules, according to a survey by the NY Times published in 2021. This left a “truly unprecedented legacy” that included significantly increasing greenhouse gas emissions, which a study by the New York School of Law in 2019 estimated would lead to “thousands of extra deaths from poor air quality each year.”

This time, Trump’s fascist beast within is more fully unleashed. His lawlessness is better planned than ever and fully backed by a Supreme Court that slants toward Trump on Constitutional law and recently ruled that presidents have almost complete immunity for criminal behavior conducted while holding office.

In his second term, Trump has escalated his attacks on environmental protections—rolling back air and water pollution rules, slashing funding for renewable energy and climate research, weakening endangered species safeguards, fast‑tracking oil leases on federal lands, and erasing all references to climate change from federal agencies, including Homeland Security.

It’s easy to see which MWD faction his administration would favor, whether old guard or new, through incendiary politics and funding control. The consequences could be significant for the 19 million people who rely on MWD, yet the agency and its members wait to see what comes.

Meanwhile, the Municipal Water District of Orange County eagerly celebrated Homeland Security’s Orange County–born Deputy Secretary, Troy Edgar, with a Board‑hosted dinner at The Westin in Costa Mesa on June 26. More on that next week.

How bad is it? Pretty bad

Before we delve into the severity of the challenges facing Southern California, let’s inoculate ourselves against cynicism by looking back at the most inspiring moment in our nation’s history: the American Revolution.

Starting with the “shot heard round the world” in 1775, America’s founding revolutionaries fought for independence from Great Britain, officially declared on July 4, 1776. They believed in “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” and envisioned a new government based on consent of the governed, liberty, equality, and democratic republicanism. While these ideals weren’t unique in history, their eventual codification—through 27 amendments—into a constitution as the guiding force for a new nation-state was unprecedented.

But the new Constitution came with a caveat. Just after the original version was signed in 1787, Benjamin Franklin reportedly answered a question, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” with, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government, but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and believe further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government. - Benjamin Franklin, Monday, September 17, 1787

Franklin’s answer from 1787 is more relevant today than ever. Whether we can maintain our democratic republic and remain faithful to the Constitution—from the White House down to local government boardrooms—is key to how we respond to climate catastrophe. Another crucial question is how much we value life itself versus our insatiable greed, selfishness and lust for power. This brings us first to the figures of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who embody these destructive tendencies better than anybody else in America today.

Der MAGA Führer and his Nazi-saluting co-despot, Elon Musk, sacked thousands of highly qualified, ethical, merit-based civil service employees across the federal bureaucracy, replacing them with unqualified but loyal MAGA partisans. They vowed to persecute resistors as they dismantled federal agencies. Trump weaponized the F.B.I. and Department of Justice not only in paranoiac retribution against those who opposed him in the past but for personal financial gain and to push the nihilist MAGA agenda forward.

Backed by his dictatorial influence over his appointed regulators who can approve or deny mergers and broadcast licenses, Trump has used used the civil courts to file ridiculously week lawsuits in order extort large financial settlements from billionaire media hobbyists who come to him on bended knee promising to censor the news for him.

Trump’s gravest threat to our democratic republic is his drive to expand ICE—under DHS—into the largest, most secretive, and least transparent law enforcement agency in U.S. history—answerable only to him.

Its poorly qualified, overpaid agents hide their faces while brazenly and brutally violating human rights on a massive scale: kidnapping racially profiled “suspects” to detain them in remote locations, beating them, and making false charges of assault on ICE agents to justify their illegal and unconstitutional actions.

Working with shadowy agencies, ICE uses racial profiling and fantasy to attack America’s supposed “enemies within”. Those accused enemies include non-criminal undocumented immigrants labeled “illegal aliens”, legal residents or even U.S. citizens. They also include members of a fictional terrorist group called ANTIFA. To advance these goals, DHS is building one of the nation’s most advanced high‑tech surveillance systems, which it uses with even less oversight than other law enforcement agencies.

Remember, whatever illegal acts Trump commits, the Supreme Court has already granted him immunity from prosecution after leaving office. If Democrats secure strong majorities in 2026, he could be removed sooner through impeachment—but he has a plan to block that too: illegal gerrymandering. Even when lower courts rule against him, SCOTUS may still shield him.

Perhaps the Epstein files scandal will undo Trump. Reports suggest cracks are forming in his fragile MAGA majorities, especially in the House. Yet with his die‑hard base and the Democrats’ weak opposition, nothing is certain.

We’re so depressed. WTF can we do?

There is a way to stop America from sliding into a MAGA‑fascist state, but it won’t come from following any political party. Party leaders will not lead us to the Promised Land—not even ones like Bernie Sanders or Zohran Mamdani.

We the People must chart the path and compel politicians to follow. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the San Diego County Water Authority—SoCal’s two largest water agencies—are ideal places to begin honing our organizing skills.

First, we should demand the right to elect the directors who sit on their boards: 38 at MWD and 34 at CWA. These directors make decisions that directly affect our survival in a world of shrinking water supplies, yet none are chosen by the public. Instead, they are appointed by political insiders on local water boards and city councils.

Representation on the MWD and CWA boards—and the voting power each representative holds—depends on the assessed property value within their district or city. That is not democracy; it is plutocracy. Because these agencies are not directly accountable to ratepayers, scandals and poor water policies are inevitable.

More on all of this next week.

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Restating the obvious: this is the world we’ve made—and the one we must now survive. Everything we do determines our access to water—the substance that sustains all life on Earth.

So as you carry out your duties—funded by a diverse pool of ratepayers, even though your votes are weighted by property values to favor the wealthiest among them, please remember that millions of lives hinge on our collective actions. In turn, to the public, I say: it’s our job to pay attention to what our public servants are doing and either take control or take the blame for what they do.

The stakes couldn’t be higher than at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD), among the largest water agencies in the U.S. Its unelected 38-member board and appointed staff oversee $2 billion annually and control water supply—and rates—for 19 million residents in six counties, relying heavily on diminishing supplies imported from the Colorado River and Northern California—both sources hundreds of miles away and facing unprecedented shortages due to climate change.

On October 14, the MWD board unanimously named Shivaji Deshmukh as MWD’s new general manager. He replaces GM Deven Upadhyay,* who stepped in after the Board abruptly terminated Adel Hagekhalil “without cause” in January 2025.

Like Hagekhalil, by becoming general manager, Deshmukh has stepped into the belly of a Biblical leviathan obsessed with its own power. Despite his impressive resume, he will probably need more than thoughts and prayers to survive in that role.

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Local government agencies may keep agenda descriptions brief—typically under 20 words—but must ensure transparency, as emphasized in this analysis by the First Amendment Coalition:

A 1984 California Attorney General opinion concluded that an agenda item called “Tuolumne River / San Joaquin River Flood Control Problem” was insufficient to give the public notice that action would be taken to oppose inclusion of the Tuolumne River in the National Wilderness Preservation System. 67 Ops. Cal. Atty. Gen. 84 (1984). The agenda requirements in this opinion were imposed by the Bagley-Keene Act, the state counterpart of the Brown Act. Again, the analysis under Bagley-Keene should be analogous to analysis under the Brown Act.

At day’s end, Chair Adán Ortega reported, no action was taken on the [actual] item discussed during closed session. After interviewing what were reportedly six candidates for the position of General Manager of the largest water agency in the West, the Board neither voted on the finalist nor narrowed the pool.

“Even though no reportable action was taken in closed session,” Ortega said, “we will disclose that the board is scheduling another round of interviews and that no candidates have been eliminated.”

On Monday, I reported that the Board was accused of conducting straw polls—informal, ostensibly non-binding votes, to narrow down the original field of 14 candidates—during closed sessions and failing to disclose the results. Such straw votes are illegal, and any vote or action taken by a local agency board, whether in closed or open session, must be reported to the public immediately.

The next closed session in the General Manager selection process was scheduled for Tuesday morning, Aug. 12. Once again, the agenda lacked transparency:

Public Employment - General Manager [To be heard in closed session pursuant to Gov. Code Section 54957]

But the Chair canceled Tuesday’s meeting for reasons not publicly disclosed. I’ve learned that board members were uneasy about my Monday night story and the complaint letter—exclusively reported in SoCal Water Wars—submitted to the board by AFSCME Local 1902 on August 8.

MWD’s selection process for a new general manager—including a final vote at an open board meeting and subsequent contract negotiations—is expected to continue through late this year, according to prior statements from Chair Adan Ortega and the MWD public affairs office.

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History shows that most water board directors struggle to address weighty issues proactively—if at all—until near-disaster strikes. Challenges like, declining water demand and rising water rates juxtaposed with costly large-scale projects, climate catastrophe and fascist threats, prove overwhelming.

For most water agencies, maintaining the status quo is far simpler and more politically advantageous than facing harsh realities and the political turmoil that comes with them—leading directors to adopt and enforce a "go along to get along" approach.

Local water districts favor calm, uneventful meetings over political upheaval. They tend to believe that effective water management should be orderly, predictable, and business-friendly—resembling a local chamber of commerce or Elks Club gathering.

But at the highest levels of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD)—the region’s most influential water agency—political maneuvering and behind-the-scenes scheming for raw political power are commonplace. Unfortunately, this culture hinders MWD’s ability to address critical issues affecting local water agencies and the 19 million ratepayers they serve.

Last July, I sought to challenge our would-be water protectors—many of whom are among this newsletter’s 1,400 subscribers—by addressing the looming fascist question directly.

I did so by cross-posting Jonathan Larsen’s Jonathan Larsen’s semi-satirical article on the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States, where the former president disputed the Department of Justice's authority to prosecute him for conspiracy to commit election fraud and obstruct election proceedings tied to the 2020 presidential election.

The indictment highlights that Donald Trump’s legal attempts, as president, to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election—where Joe Biden defeated him with 81.2 million votes to 74.2 million and an electoral count of 306 to 202—were “uniformly unsuccessful.”

It further claims that Trump employed “unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting election results,” orchestrating three conspiracies in the process:

1. A conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government…

2. A conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified (“the certification proceeding”)…

3. A conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted…

Here’s the DOJ’s description of the “manner and the means” of Trump and his co-conspirators’ criminal actions, from the indictment:

That is, on the pretext of baseless fraud claims, the Defendant pushed officials in certain states to ignore the popular vote; disenfranchise millions of voters; dismiss legitimate electors; and ultimately, cause the ascertainment of and voting by illegitimate electors in favor of the Defendant.

As highlighted in Larsen’s article, the court’s conservative majority ruled in favor of Trump, asserting that the president holds absolute immunity for crimes committed in office related to “core” presidential functions, and “presumptive immunity” for non-core presidential functions.

Since the Supreme Court’s majority did not define core and non-core presidential functions, Larsen argued—though I disagree—those omissions left room for a strong legal appeal to clarify the gaps in its ruling and potentially safeguard against the resurgence of monarchy in American politics.

But Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote the Court’s dissenting opinion, rejected the existence of loopholes as even a partial way out. “Argument by argument, the majority invents immunity through brute force,” she wrote. “If the majority’s sweeping concept of ‘official acts’ has any real limits, the majority is unwilling to reveal them in today’s decision.”

Justice Sotomayor’s argument resonated with me. In my introduction to Larsen’s article, I contended that the Supreme Court’s ruling effectively granted dictatorial powers to any president of the United States.

Aware of Trump’s staunch opposition to environmental protection and his “Drill baby, drill” stance on water-supply management, I argued that, if elected again, Trump would be even more likely to destroy “any hope of continuing toward common sense water management reform for another generation.”

By “common sense” water management, I meant the Metropolitan Water District’s “One Water” program, which prioritized sustainability and was introduced by Adel Hagekhalil as general manager in July 2021. Around the same time, the MWD Board, under Adan Ortega’s leadership, worked tirelessly to remove Hagekhalil and dismantle One Water, ultimately succeeding. More on that to come.

I urged everyone to read Larsen’s article and and share their thoughts on “what water management policy might be like in America--guided by the Supreme Court's ruling granting presidential immunity from prosecution for criminal acts including treason.”

Next: the response.

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The ability of Southern Californians to minimize and adapt to climate catastrophe depends on four key factors: the President of the United States and Congress, the Governor of California and the State Legislature, the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) and its General Manager, and the member agencies, like the Municipal Water District of Orange County and the San Diego County Water Authority.

Currently, as diligent news watchers know, the climate future for SoCal residents looks bleak on all fronts. Here’s why:

• The new president, Donald Trump, withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, the deal that bound all but three nations of the world—Iran, Libya and Yemen—in an effort, however lacking, to “fight climate change.” In another first day executive order he directed United States Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service to “identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change” from their websites.

• California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom badly wants us to believe that he’s a progressive, and a true environmentalist, and that he is our national leader in the fight against MAGA overreach. But he’s also perceived as a limousine liberal and is compromised by the state’s Big Agriculture industry and other corporate campaign backers.

• When MWD hired Adel Hagekhalil as general manager in 2021, it marked the first time in its history that it seriously valued inclusion in the workplace and sustainable water management policies designed for an era of climate catastrophe. However, internal factional backlash and a power struggle led to Hagekhalil's unethical dismissal last January, despite an outside investigation that cleared him of any wrongdoing. Now, it appears MWD will revert to its previous policy of relative complacency over climate catastrophe.

In fact, the situation may be worse than we think. After all, Trump has other things on his mind besides helping California, whose wokeness and environmentalism he and his devout followers loathe and blame for the LA fires.

During his first term in office Trump successfully rolled back over 100 environmental rules, according to a survey by the NY Times published in 2021. This left a “truly unprecedented legacy” that included significantly increasing greenhouse gas emissions, which a study by the New York School of Law in 2019 estimated would lead to “thousands of extra deaths from poor air quality each year.”

This time, Trump’s fascist beast within is more fully unleashed. His lawlessness is better planned than ever and fully backed by a Supreme Court the tilts his way on Constitutional law and recently ruled that presidents have almost complete immunity for criminal behavior conducted while holding office. Plus, he owns a majority share of both houses of Congress.

It’s not hard to figure out which MWD faction, new or old guard, his administration will favor, indirectly or directly, through his incendiary politics and by controlling funding. The effects could be significant.

We’re so depressed. WTF can we do?

But what can we do? Before we delve into the severity of the challenges facing Southern California, let’s inoculate ourselves against cynicism by looking back at the most inspiring moment in our nation’s history: the American Revolution.

Starting with the “shot heard round the world” in 1775, America’s founding revolutionaries fought for independence from Great Britain, officially declared on July 4, 1776. They believed in “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” and envisioned a new government based on consent of the governed, liberty, equality, and democratic republicanism. While these ideals weren’t unique in history, their eventual codification—through 27 amendments—into a constitution as the guiding force for a new nation-state was unprecedented.

But the new Constitution came with a caveat. Just after the original version was signed in 1787, Benjamin Franklin reportedly answered a question, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” with, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government, but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and believe further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government. - Benjamin Franklin, Monday, September 17, 1787

How bad is it?

Franklin’s answer from 1787 is more relevant today than ever. Whether we can maintain our democratic republic and remain faithful to the Constitution—from the White House down to local government boardrooms—is key to how we respond to climate catastrophe. Another crucial question is how much we value life itself versus our insatiable greed, selfishness and lust for power. This brings us first to the figures of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who embody these destructive tendencies better than anybody else in America today.

Der MAGA Führer and his Nazi-saluting co-despot, acting true-to-form, are sacking thousands of highly qualified, ethical, merit-based civil service employees across the federal bureaucracy, replacing them with unqualified but loyal MAGA partisans. They are vowing to persecute resistors as they dismantle, destroy and weaponize vital government agencies not only in paranoiac retribution for opposing Trump in the past but for personal financial gain and to push the nihilist MAGA agenda forward without transparency and unopposed by laws and regulators.

They are aided with obedient praise by the thin MAGA majority in Congress, encouraged by its barely-pulsed opposition Democratic Party leaders, and honored by fellow billionaire media hobbyists come before them on bended knees.

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On October 28, I began exploring the due process—or lack thereof—concerning the investigation of Adel Hagekhalil, General Manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, for alleged workplace harassment and discrimination.

I emphasized that safeguarding the confidentiality of all parties involved is essential for ensuring a fair and impartial investigation. This protection is not only a matter of due process but also mandated by state law and Metropolitan’s Administrative Code.

The accusations that led to the investigation were made in a dramatic 14-page complaint by Metropolitan’s Assistant General Manager and CFO, Katano Kasaine, dated May 27. Her complaint is against her boss, GM Hagekhalil.

In response to AGM Kasaine’s complaint, Metropolitan’s Board of Directors, in a surprise vote on June 13, while GM Hagekhalil was out of the country, decided to place him on administrative leave pending the results of an investigation by an outside law firm.

On June 12, just one day before the vote, AGM Kasaine’s complaint was published online by Politico, one of America's most popular political journals. It’s clear that someone, likely from within Metropolitan, illegally leaked the complaint to Politico. The publication's reporters and editors seemed more focused on attracting readers than on respecting due process rights.

Opposing biases

Conducting a fair investigation that leads to just solutions requires controlling for biases that could influence the investigation from the outset.

However, long before June 12, AGM Kasaine’s entire complaint had already been knowingly leaked to 38 members of Metropolitan’s Board of Directors. This leak occurred before any investigation had been completed as prescribed by law.

The board members who received the unredacted document were already deeply divided over future water-supply plans for the agency’s 19 million Southern California customers, especially during this era of extreme climate change.

GM Hagekhalil and AGM Kasaine represent opposing sides in a long-standing ideological struggle between the new guard and old guard. The main point of contention revolves around whether to support Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Delta Conveyance Project and a greater reliance on imported water, or to emphasize more conservation and the development of local and regional supplies.

GM Hagekhalil downplays the Delta Conveyance Project (DCP), instead advocating for the creation of a “fourth aqueduct” through conservation, wastewater recycling, groundwater storage, and stormwater capture.

GM Hagekhalil’s immediate predecessor, Jeffrey Kightlinger, was a strong advocate for the Delta Conveyance Project (DCP). AGM Kasaine, who worked under Kightlinger for two years, currently serves as the treasurer of the Delta Conveyance Design and Construction Authority, a joint powers authority representing sixteen water agencies committed to building the DCP.

GM Hagekhalil was hired in June 2021 by a razor-thin vote of the Board of Directors to lead the new guard, focusing not only on water-management reform but also on changing a culture of discrimination and harassment that had persisted during Kightlinger’s 15-year tenure.

Hagekhalil swiftly tackled Kightlinger’s shortcomings by implementing a series of reforms for handling worker complaints and improving workplace culture, as recommended in a recent State Audit—an achievement that might be perceived as a rebuke to his predecessor.

AGM Kasaine’s complaint alleges that, in her last year and a half at Metropolitan, she endured the most “hostile and dysfunctional” workplace she had ever experienced. She attributes this to GM Hagekhalil’s management style, which she claims included cronyism and incompetence. Kasaine blames her trauma on constant scrutiny, discrimination, and retaliation by Hagekhalil for “standing up against issues that are not in MWD’s [Metropolitan’s] best interest.”

This leak, by all accounts, weakened due process rights of both the accused, GM Hagekhalil, and the accuser, AGM Katano Kasaine. My article posed the question, "Who leaked the 'confidential' complaint against Metropolitan’s GM to Politico?"

The question was both rhetorical and substantive. I do not know the name of the last link in the chain of leakers who handed the confidential and explosive complaint to Politico.

However, I do know the names of those who “set in motion a narrative that is potentially harmful to the general manager, the chief financial officer, this board, and this agency,” as described by Board Chair Adán Ortega. He characterized this illegal and unethical act but incorrectly attributed it to a single perpetrator.

I promised to reveal those names.

Read more

• MWD response to accusations of Racial ‘animus’ by MWD board members toward Muslim GM alleged in letter

  • Update: I received the following response from the MWD Press Manager: “Metropolitan takes all accusations of discrimination, harassment and retaliation seriously. The allegations of EEO-based discrimination, harassment and retaliation in the letter you reference [see PDF file below] were referred by Chair Ortega in accordance with Metropolitan’s EEO policies, practices and procedures.”

  • Socal Water Wars Preview: more to come on this matter soon.

  

  

  Cair Letter 2

  687KB ∙ PDF file

  Download

  Download

• A three-day delay: my report of MWD leaks will appear [las] Thursday morning.

  • Update: I apologize, but publication of my story revealing the names of individuals who leaked confidential documentation and information, which potentially affects the due process rights involved in the administrative case of Assistant General Manager Katano Kasaine v. General Manager Adel Hagekhalil, will be delayed until later this week. This delay is necessary to allow me to reach out to additional key stakeholders and to take more time to put the facts in context for my ongoing investigation and analysis.

• SoCal Water Wars conflict of interest and bias preview:

  • I have obtained additional information indicating bias and a clear ethical conflict of interest among various MWD member agencies, who will decide the future employment status of General Manager Adel Hagekhalil. This situation defies the State Audit’s recommendations and the often-proclaimed, but routinely ignored, universal standard of avoiding 'even the appearance of a conflict of interest.' My goal is to present that report next week.

• Who leaked ‘confidential’ complaint against MWD GM to Politico? Preview: I wrote: “Clearly, the complaint against GM Hagekhalil was handled outside of regular procedures, as I will explain in detail in my next related post.” Follow up preview: MWD Chair Adán Ortega, who lashed out at unnamed leakers, disagrees.

• SoCal Water Wars preview: CityWatch Los Angeles: a look at all the water-news innuendo that’s unfit to print but got printed anyway.

• SoCal 2024 election water district results: the good, the bad and the really bad. Including a review of three of the best elected water buffaloes in Southern California. Hint: no, they aren’t all “liberals” like me, but some of the most disappointing ones are. And a special profile feature that should have been revealed before Halloween.

• My series of stories on the financial effects of the Carlsbad ocean desalination plant on San Diego County ratepayers will continue soon, concluding in an in-depth interview with Jeremy Crutchfield, the Water Resources Manager for San Diego County Water Authority. The mutually agreed upon idea for the interview arose from a constructive and enlightening conversation last summer with Crutchfield and another high level staffer. Prior to that conversation, the staffer opined, my reporting on CWA issues had been accurate but lacked CWA’s viewpoint in its own words. I always welcome constructive criticism and other feedback, and I take it seriously. Her criticism made sense.This newsletter is written from a progressive perspective, and I have no problem with being honest about my own biases. There is no such thing as an unbiased journalist or even unbiased human being. Every thinking, caring, person has a bias and it’s always dishonest or pure fantasy to deny it. It’s also bad journalism—after all, if you don’t care about the issues you report on, what use are you as a journalist? I am progressive but I am not partisan in my reporting. And I don't see life through conceptual absolutes. I believe in presenting all sides of an issue factually and with honest context. This approach not only helps to ensure fairness but also forces me to examine and reexamine my own views as well as others’. It's not about being contrarian but avoiding the trap of an echo chamber. I look forward to a mutually challenging conversation with Jeremy about ocean desalination and related water management issues shortly after the New Year.

  

• Stream of thought: When the San Diego County Water Authority (CWA) signed a 30-year take-or-pay contract with the owner of the Carlsbad located desalination plant, Poseidon Water, to buy 48,000 acre-feet of its water annually, it accepted Poseidon’s misleading marketing narratives. These narratives were designed to attract a global network of investors by promising a reliable and locally produced source of long-term revenue for the company and its partners. However, the CWA was also driven by a legitimate but exaggerated fear of being left without water, as it had been by MWD in the 1990s, its major supplier at the time. This fear sparked a decades-long “water war” between the two agencies, resembling the infamous Hatfields and McCoys' feud. However, instead of guns, the CWA fought by seeking detachment from the MWD, creating alternative water supplies, and filing successful lawsuits for overcharging.

  

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  You can learn more about the history of that feud in the book 'Beyond Chinatown' by Steven P. Erie (2006, Stanford University Press). Although the book has a pro-MWD bias, it's still a fascinating read. Feel free to skip Chapter 2 ('Ghosts of Chinatown') if you want to focus on the CWA - MWD feud and other more relevant content.

  

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  Regrettably, CWA's legitimate pursuit of fairness and supply-sustainability morphed into a crusade-like obsession for scapegoating MWD for San Diego County’s high water rates that were due in large part to the Carlsbad desal plant’s costly water—three times more than MWD’s rates for imported water. That made the Carlsbad desal water financially untenable, leading two CWA member-agencies to cancel their membership and go to MWD for its much cheaper water. This has also sparked calls for CWA to radically change its business model, including by the “creative destruction” of its 30-year take-or-pay contract with Poseidon. Alternatively, there's an effort to offload the overpriced and largely unnecessary ocean desalination water (making about 10 percent of CWA’s supply but 20-24 percent of its total supply-costs) to water-hungry areas outside the county or state. This action dismantles the myth propagated by Poseidon and CWA over the past 24 years that Poseidon's desalinated water would someday be as affordable as imported water. Crutchfield and MWD Board Chair Adán Ortega recently confirmed to me directly that CWA and MWD staff are collaborating to find customers outside of the county for its desal water. So far, potential buyers include the Imperial Irrigation District and the Moulton-Niguel Water District in Orange County.

  SoCal Water Wars is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

  Thanks for reading SoCal Water Wars! This post is public so feel free to share it.

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The letter was addressed to MWD’s Chairman of the Board, Adán Ortega.

MWD’s Board of Directors is overseeing an investigation of a complaint made against GM Hagekhalil by Asst. GM Kasaine for harassment and discrimination. CAIR’s letter alleges that unnamed members of the Board directed racist insults at GM Hagekhalil.

Asst. GM Kasaine's complaint, dated May 27, was reviewed by the Board in a closed session on June 13. The Board voted to place GM Hagekhalil on administrative leave for 90 days, pending an investigation.

After the investigation, his employment status would be determined. However, five months later, the investigation is ongoing, and his leave has been extended indefinitely, with no end in sight

The MWD supplies imported water to 26 member agencies, serving 19 million residents across six Southern California counties, and operates with an annual budget of $2.4 billion.

As the general manager of the largest water supplier in the western United States, Hagekhalil plays a crucial role in water management that extends beyond Southern California. He narrowly secured the position of general manager after two contentious votes by the Board. He began work on July 6, 2021.

GM Hagekhalil succeeded Jeffrey Kightlinger, who left MWD after serving as its General Manager for 15 years. Kightlinger's departure was overshadowed by a State Audit, which outlined years of alleged workplace harassment, discrimination, and retaliation by management, as well as the failure to implement necessary reforms.

Hagekhalil earnestly attempted to implement the State Audit’s recommended reforms. He also began to implement water management reforms that sharply contrasted with Kightlinger’s water management philosophy. Both moves played a role in bitter power struggles between opposing MWD factions that spilled out into the public domain.

The CAIR letter is dated October 18, three days prior to the Board’s latest closed-session decision on October 21 to extend GM Hagekhalil’s administrative leave. The CAIR letter was not mentioned on the Oct. 21 MWD meeting agenda, however.

The letter cites “problematic statements and actions that indicate animus towards him [Hagekhalil] based on his ethnicity, national origin, and religion,” such statements as:

• “When are we going to get rid of those refugees?”

• “When are we going to hire someone that we can pronounce their last name?”

• And referring to Muslims and Arab Americans as “Camel Jockeys.”

These remarks, the letter says, indicate a “strong animus and unlawful discriminatory intent by Board members.” Not only are they “reprehensible, but if this animus motivated the actions against Mr. Hagekhalil these actions would clearly be in violation of California and federal anti-discrimination laws.”

I made numerous attempts by phone and email in past weeks to contact the author of the letter, Amr Shabaik, CAIR’s Legal Director, for more details but he didn’t respond. GM Hagekhalil also did not respond to my requests.

I also contacted Chair Ortega by email earlier yesterday, but he did not respond either. However, by law, he would be required to pass the complaint on through the proper channels.

More on that to come, soon.

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In my previous article about the administrative case of MWD’s Asst. General Manager Katano Kasaine v. General Manager Adel Hagekhalil, I wrote:

Then, who leaked Asst GM Kasaine’s confidential harassment claim against GM Hagekhalil to Politico, one of the most widely read online news journals in the world?

Chairman Ortega, remember, surmised that “the person who set off the chain of events overnight is in this room or listening in,” which means that just about anybody at MWD could be the perp.

The fact is, dear reader, that Chairman Ortega and every board member of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California knows exactly who the culprit/s in the leak caper is/are. They know, in other words, who “set in motion a narrative that is potentially harmful to the general manager, the chief financial officer, this board and this agency,” as Ortega put it.

But they’re not going to tell you who it is/they are, so I will.

On Monday, Nov. 4, I will reveal the results of my own independent investigation, which proves well beyond “50% and a feather” who is responsible for the leak of Asst. GM Kasaine’s confidential information to Politico.

Fulfillment of my promise made above will occur on Thursday morning, Nov. 7, in order to give the leakers working at the MWD, who knowingly broke with official protocol and thus violated the privacy and due process rights of Katano Kasaine and Adel Hagekhalil, a reasonable amount of time to explain themselves in their own words.

Accordingly, I sent an email to the accused leakers asking them to respond and promising that I would wait until two days after Election Day to post my story.

Thank you for your understanding and patience.

Now, get out and vote if you haven’t already.