MEDIA ALERT: DIRTY WATER OPPOSE SB625 THE HOSTILE TAKEOVER AND PRIVATIZATION OF CENTRAL BASIN WATER DISTRICT
For media inquiries please contact Dallas Fowler (310) 429 - 5777
WHAT:
Senate Bill 625 is an effort to circumvent a court hearing scheduled for July 23, 2020 which will determine whether 4 members of the Central Basin’s 7 Member Board are a majority to take action.
Oppose Senate Bill 625 because:
✓ Violates all notice rules and due process
✓ SB625 was introduced 12 days ago without input from the community
✓ Disenfranchises over $2 million voters in Southeast Los Angeles wiping out a democratically elected board
✓ Cancels an election
✓ Violates the very law that created Central Basin by way of a ballot election from its electorate
✓ Eliminates a majority Latino elected water board in a time where there is a need for more Latino representation in this industry
✓ Violates civil rights
✓ Violates voting rights
✓ Unconstitutional
✓ Public was locked out of hearings
✓ Threatens other Metropolitan Water District of Southern Ca member agencies
✓ There was no notice to the community
✓ Plan to give away approx. $100 million in public assets to secret private water interest
✓ Bill was amended without public discussion
✓ Cancels the election scheduled for November 2020
✓ Eliminates Central Basin’s representation on the Metropolitan Water District
✓ Water rates will increase
✓ Bill was introduced on May 26, 2020 and is a gut and amend meant to deceive the citizens of our District with false statements
✓ This is not a Covid-19 bill and should not be heard without community input
✓ The issued identified in the 2015 Ca Audit are dated and have been fixed
✓ 5 elections have occurred since the 2015 state audit and this is a completely different board
✓ Makes numerous misrepresentations about the status of Central Basin
WHO:
Senator Steven Bradford authored (gut and amend) claims he was “set up” to carry the bill
Assemblymember Reginald Jones-Sawyer (carrying on assembly side) under pressure of Speaker to maintain support for his re-election
Speaker Anthony Rendón - Member of the area, his attorney Alf Brandt former MWD board member Alf Brandt true author of SB 625
Assemblymember Cristina Garcia
Member over the area, wrote AB1794 that put the private water companies on the board to shut down the Central Basin
Assemblymember Wendy Carillo Co-Sponsor of the bill
Assemblymember Ian Calderon
Co-Sponsor of the Bill
Supervisor Janice Hahn -
Rumored Family ownership in Surburban Water Systems
Local Agency Formation Commission of Los Angeles County (Hilda Solis, Donald Dear, Gerard McCallum, Kathryn Barger, David Ryu)
WRD - Water Replenishment District Wants to annex Central Basin
Olivarez Madruga Lemieux O’Neill, LLP - recently resigned as general counsel for Central Basin after confronted by the board for instructing staff to wire $30,000 payment to Nossoman, LLP without board approval among many other unlawful unilateral directives to staff they did not have authority to make. They are also currently providing counsel to Metropolitan Water District.
Nossoman, LLP was the counsel hired by WRD and are the same attorney’s representing Cristina Garcia and Wendy Carillo in their sexual harassment cases in Sacramento
Sebastian Ridley-Thomas - heads the government relations firm hired to lobby for WRD in Sacramento
Anthony Willoughby - Counsel for Central Basin (may have conflict w WRD and/or Board Members past present)
WHY:
POWER GRAB FOR WRD, Rendón, and Garcia to stop Central Basin who applied to receive the Sativa Water District which went into receivership and was cleaned with public funds and yet handed over to a private water company called Suburban Water Systems. Central Basin constituents see this as the blueprint for privatization of their water.
Cristina Garcia authored AB1794 which is a water bill specifically for Central Basin and according to her, her law overrides constitutional law, federal, state laws water codes, and the Brown Act by stipulating that a simple majority of 4 votes on a 7 member board can not move forward with any action.
SB625 is being rapidly advanced under the false premise that it is COVID-19 related to circumvent a court hearing set for July 23, 2020 determining what constitutes a simple majority vote of the Central Basin Board of Directors.
HOW:
2 million people represented by the Central Basin Water District will be disenfranchised and no longer represented by the officials they elected. The public ownership/local control of their water will go to another board (WRD) that they did NOT elect until the Local Agency Formation Commission decides who the final manager will be which the concern is that it will go to
a private entity to control like Sativa went to Suburban Water Systems.
The bill makes numerous mis-respresentations about Central Basin. The following are some important FACTS about Central Basin:
✓ Central Basin has a General Manager
✓ Central Basin is delivering clean and affordable water
✓ Central Basin has a General Council
✓ Central Basin is fiscally solvent
✓ Central Basin has a Chair and Vice Chair
✓ Central Basin is financially stable (8 million in reserves and approx. 100 million in assets)
✓ Central Basin enacted all 33 recommendation by the Ca State auditor in 2015
✓ 5 elections have occurred since the 2015 audit and this is a completely different board.
✓ Central Basin Board never authorized an illegal trust fund. It was created by former Central Basin lawyers without the knowledge of the Board. Central Basin Board sued and recovered $2.35 million.
QUOTES
“There are a number of problems with this bill...removing elected representation, presenting problems the board (central basin) had in the past that are not issues today. More importantly, it sets a precedence. This is wrong and if it can happen here it can happen anywhere. We need our communities to speak up and use your rights to support the opposition of SB625.”
Senator Bob Archuleta
California 32nd Senate District
“As we have experienced first hand in our poor and working class communities across the country, water and access to it has increasingly becoming a civil rights issue. This is happening in Flint Michigan, Compton
Lack of affordability, lack of public investment in our system and an attack on our governing structures that give our communities a voice and a seat at the table on these issues. SB 625 was introduced in Ca Legislature 10 days ago in a time when no one is watching. This bill and its intent is to
This bill is a violation of our civil rights, a violation of our due process rights, a violation of our voting right act. SB 625 is unconstitutional”
Leticia Vasquez-Wilson
President of the Board
Central Basin Water District Board Director Division IV
“The agenda of the author/coauthors should be sanctioned and viewed as a terrorist act upon my community of color. This is a classist and racist move to inflict harm against the most vulnerable and prevent the process of the human right to water. This power grab is a pattern set by these authors, to privatize water. Your motives and agenda are as bad as our 300 contaminated wells that are worse than Flint, Michigan’s water.”
Martha Camacho Rodriguez
Central Basin Municipal Water District
Director, Division I
“Senate Bill 625 is a bad bill. SB625 is for the private water companies and not for the community. Why are you trying to privatize? How many of our elected officials have received money from these private entities? Do the job that we elected you to do ‘for the people by the people.’ Central Basin passed their audit with flying colors. Dissolving a solvent and elected body is a violation of the people’s basic rights to representation and water.”
Barbara Calhoun
Compton Community College Board of Trustees and Former Compton City Councilwoman
“Our main concern is that the community has not had the opportunity to buy into their own water rights before they have been sold or licensed off to private entities that we have not elected which is a violation of our basic human rights to water and representation. “
Paulette Simpson-Gipson
President, Compton NAACP
Dallas Fowler
Principal
877.733.3829 office/fax
310.429.5777 m
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