Ever Been to Your Local Water Board Meeting? Beware of What You're Missing!

'When we don't participate we act blindly and get the government we deserve.'

By Debbie Cook

Editor’s note: Debbie Cook is a former Huntington Beach City Council member (2000-2008) and two-term mayor of that city. She served on California’s State Desalination Task Force in 2003 and as a city official voted against the ocean desalination plant proposed by Poseidon Resources Inc. Cook has been monitoring government transparency at local water districts for 12 years and has contributed to SoCalWaterWars (formerly Surf City Voice) in the past.

The word transparent is often used to describe clean water, but I have never heard it used to describe the water districts that manage our water systems, except by the districts themselves.

Orange County Water District director Steve Sheldon mocks transparency at a committee meeting several years ago. Photo SoCalWaterWars

The description you would more likely hear is, self-serving, rude, unethical, corrupted, toxic.

Consider the first time I attended the Mesa Water District of Costa Mesa, for example (by clicking this link), and…