On Monday October 12th West Valley Water Board held a “SPECIAL” meeting to address issues that arose from the October 8th regular board meeting. We covered the “SPECIAL” meeting in a previous post to give the public a better idea of what was going to take place at noon on a Monday workday. At the meeting we saw a powder keg of emotions and Electioneering going on while the Water Board of Directors went into an early Closed Session meeting to come to an agreement to fire their current legal counsel from the firm Redwine and Sherrill and to proceed down a path of a dangerous General Public Agenda that from the talk in the crowd was ripe with violations of the Brown Act the very set of rules that dictates how elected boards are to be run and handle themselves. This meeting never made it past the first item on their public agenda.
Here are videos of people that choose to address the Water Board prior to their closed session:
The water Board legal counsel was not invited into the closed session we found out later it was because there had already been a decision to fire him and his firm possible Brown Act violation #1
The first general agenda item was listed as Appointment of Special Counsel. Many in the crowd had an issue with the vague nature of the item in question and once the public began speaking out it was more clear what this “SPECIAL COUNSEL” would be tasked to do. This special counsel was apparently going to be given marching orders to put a negative shade on two people currently running for the water board. Clifford Young the Vice President of the Board had a very angry look on his face and his comments and body language were very aggressive. I spoke on record about the costs of hiring an attorney just to sully the reputation weeks before an election of two people seeking seats on the board and asked how that was fair to the rate payers. I also spoke to Mr. Young and his aggressive posture and the message that was sending to the audience.
After I spoke Mr. Young got up and proved that he was out to cast negative shade over current Board Director Alan Dyer and Former West Valley Water District General Manager Butch Arizia who is running for one of the three seats open for this election. See the whole video below and watch it to the end where West Valley Water Board President Betty Gosney sets the record straight further showing the Vice Presidents true intentions.
Even though the attacks on Mr. Arizia were proven false still on social media the group out to take total control of the Water Board still post these types of statements:
Demwomen Sbc In December 2012 the West Valley Water District. Board members Betty Doshier Gosney
Earl Tilman,Jackie Cox,Alan Dyer, Don Olinger,
Approved a 75% increase on the water bills in our community
Bloomington, Rialto,north Fontana south Fontana. This was during a recession that hit the community, causing hard-working people that year 2012 to now, that are losing their homes and businesses going belly up!
This information is in the WVWD minutes December 2012.
You may call 909-875-1804 to get a copy of the minutes,pulled from the file these minutes dated December 20,2012 resolution 2012-23 article 21.
This meeting had about 20 local residents out asking a lot of good questions and the two words of the day were TRANSPARENCY & BROWN ACT VIOLATION. Mr. Young was affected by these mentions of the Brown Act and the potential violations that existed within the make up of the Special Meeting Agenda that he started to call out the people making the accusations and the people he was speaking too should know their Brown Act pretty well they all have had to abide by it pretty recently. These people were former Councilwoman Lynn Hirtz, Councilman Shawn O’Connell and Private Investigator Thompson all had words of caution for the board if they choose to proceed. Here is video of the rest of the board not falling in line with any more poor decisions and further Brown Act violations.
The list of potential Brown Act violations are listed here:
- The meeting itself and the timing of the meeting.
- The appearance of more than two Board Members meeting and deciding on the issue of firing the current legal counsel.
- Putting out information at a board meeting that would harm or sully the reputation of a fellow board member or other person running for a board seat.
- Calling for a vote on allowing the General Manager of the Water District to find alternate legal counsel for the Thursday regular meeting without it being on the agenda or calling the meeting a emergency meeting.
- The attempt to hire a person that would only report to the board of directors.
If you look at the agenda for tomorrow little has changed except the Confidential Assistant that will report only to the Water Board has gone from a public item to a Closed Session Item.
The meeting is tomorrow at 3pm at 855 West Baseline Road it appears this one will be just as exciting as Monday.
rialtonow 