Why Do Some OCWD Board Members Loathe Being Watched? Looking Back to July, 2014

Note: The Surf City Voice website was hacked last December and is under reconstruction. This commentary was first published July 22, 2014.

By Debbie Cook

Special to the Surf City Voice

Commentary

About a dozen members of the public attended the July 16 meeting of the Orange County Water District to support Director Jan Flory’s request that staff gather information on the cost of streaming board meetings on the Internet, something many other Orange County government bodies have done for years.

Flory sees streaming as an important way to improve transparency and increase the public’s participation in managing its water resources.

But the stars above must have been aligned against Flory that night because, even though her proposal won five out of eight possible votes, it lost.

In earthly terms, what happened?

The answer is in the shrewd, some might say cynical, use of the OCWD’s administrative code, which specifically requires an affirmative vote of the majority of the entire ten-member board (s…