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MMWD
Wasteful Spending and Bad Land Management at MMWD Need To End
It is time for change at Marin Municipal Water District. That is why the Coalition of Sensible Taxpayers backs challenger candidates Joby Tapia and Greg Knell.
Knell and Tapia would contribute much-needed fiscal discipline to end wasteful spending and an unending multi-year rate spiral.
Knell and Tapia urge completely overhauling the district’s land management practices before a catastrophic fire occurs.
MMWD customers have had enough of “experience”—the facile rationale the Marin IJ’s editorial board cites in endorsing four more years of past-expiration-date incumbents.
We have experienced 40-60% rate hikes since 2016 and are set to experience two more rate hikes totaling 14.5% in 2019 and 2020. Hundreds of thousands of our ratepayer dollars have been wasted on consultants to study actions we opposed: plans for a desal plant and toxic herbicides in our watershed.
The incumbents, if reelected, will reign over us 28 years (Jack Gibson, division I) and 18 years (Cynthia Koehler, division IV).
What has the incumbents’ experience brought us?
Total compensation for the average MMWD full-time employee will exceed $183,000 this year, up 8.6% year over year. This is more than twice the median compensation of a Marin ratepayer!
The district pays wildly more than Marin’s private sector: in the midst of customers’ 2016 rate hike protests, the board approved a new administrative assistant job posting with compensation up to $133,614.
Under California law, whatever the water district spends on permitted expenses gets passed on to ratepayers in the next rate cycle.We have no vote . . . except to vote out the culprits.
Besides above-market salaries, the water board provides rich pensions AND lifetime gold-plated healthcare insurance for retirees and their spouses.
In an obvious conflict of interest—and in sharp contrast to other Marin agencies and districts—MMWD’s Directors award themselves the same fully-paid health insurance worth $21,000-22,000 per year tax free.
MMWD’s incumbents tout their water and environmental expertise. Yet they’ve failed to adopt 21st century approaches to the single biggest threat to our environment and water quality:catastrophic wild fire.
MMWD manages vegetation in only 1,100 (5%) of the district’s 21,600 acres. Much of this is a broom-pulling program initially intended to protect native species. MMWD must start over with an aggressive new plan to dramatically cut accumulated fuel load.
Meanwhile, our “experienced” board – none of whom has financial expertise – approved a foolish 2016 course change that is costing us enormously. They decided to issue fewer bonds – even though bond rates were then reaching a multi-generational low.MMWD’s experienced board elected instead to have current customers pay, via an endless series of rate hikes, for infrastructure that will be used by future residents.
This was fiscal malpractice.
MMWD ratepayers deserve better.
Tapia and Knell have pointed out many possibilities to make better sense at MMWD.
- Automate meter reading.
- Redeploy headcount.
- Stop providing health insurance for retirees over age 65; Medicare has been paid for through Medicare taxes and would cost the district nothing more.
- Peg salary and benefits to the local private sector.
- Require new apartment buildings to pay to hook up and meter every apartment (WinCup’s single hookup was scandalously cheap).
- And, most important, implement a wildfire prevention program that actually reduces fuel load (with goats, hand tools, controlled burns) and automates early detection via innovative fire spotter technology.
Tapia and Knell have real world experience solving problems and managing budgets with real world constraints.
Vote for Joby Tapia and Greg Knell.
Laura Effel, Director, Coalition of Sensible Taxpayers