GCSD board asked to step down

Animosity between district and ratepayers increasing
GRATON — A group of Graton Community Service District (GCSD) ratepayers crammed into the small conference room at Sonoma Wines Monday evening to ask the entire board to step down.
The four board members refused, during the board’s regularly scheduled meeting, a tense 2-hour affair, which seemed to escalate tensions and frustration with the state of the small sewer district that has seen rate increases in four of the past five years. A 5th member, David Mienke, was appointed later in the meeting to fill a vacancy.
“I’ve been attending meetings for the past three years and I was appalled by the last meeting,” said Graton resident David Clemmer, who accused the board and general manager Bob Rawson of “hurling obscenities” and striking his wife. “This is not the way to run a public entity. … There needs to be more transparency. When we want to see the books there should be no delay.”
Ratepayer       Elizabeth Herron said that her initial inquiries about her concerns over increasing rates and a lack of response to the 2009-10 Grand Jury report, “created a lot of animosity.”
“It was not in any way personal or about you, who are neighbors and friends — I hope,” Herron said, adding “thank you for your years of service. I know it’s hard and you’re tired. Please step down.”
The district has been the subject of two Grand Jury investigations, in 2006-07 and 2009-10, which concluded that there was no deliberate wrongdoing by the GCSD but questioned consulting and engineering costs, a lack of outside peer review of management practices and raised doubts about the district’s economic feasibility, suggesting a joint venture with the Forestville District.
In the wake of the most recent Grand Jury report, Rawson responded with a 101-page report that he said necessitated a response from the Grand Jury that never came.
“The Grand Jury never responded: They attacked and then ran off with their tail between their legs,” Rawson said.
Rawson also thinks that frustrated ratepayers attack him and say things that have “no justification.”
“The facts are quite available to check. They don’t pay attention to the facts,” he said. “I’m only one person. They want information, but complain about the amount of money we spend (providing it).”
He added that the GCSD has been trying to improve its communications by releasing regular newsletters and posting documents on its website.
As to a complaint that the GCSD paid its part-time bookkeeper $126,000 last year, including overtime, Rawson justified the cost due to the complexity of the work the bookkeeper has been doing.
“She’s more like an accountant and helped us conduct a FEMA audit,” he said. “We now have money coming back from FEMA — $625,000. She’s a fantastic employee.”
But Rawson’s techniques grate some Graton residents, who think he’s too abrasive and secretive, going so far to suggest in an e-mail that as general manager, it is his job to delay compliance with Public Records Act requests.
In another e-mail exchange, dated April 17, Rawson was warning against “meddling” in the effort to get a $6 million loan from the Clean Water Act State Revolving fund and said he would be insulted if someone didn’t believe him.
“Can you imagine someone calling your lender — the state — creating doubt about our credit-worthiness and putting it in jeopardy?” Rawson said. “It’s really frustrating when people get in the way of doing your work,” he added.
Rawson said that the facility should be up and in compliance within the next 404 days and in the meantime he will continue with community outreach — the board recently hired legal counsel — and answering his critics.
As to the board, President Jane Eagle said they will continue to serve until the next election.
“We’re not going. We would love to get off the board, but we’re not going to resign,” she said. “We’re not quitters.”
But Clemmer and his group still want accountability to the ratepayers in terms they can understand.
“You’d think there would be some agency that could hold them accountable,” he said. “It should be an open book and readily available and not rocket science or algorithms.”
The GCSD was formed in December 2003 with 84 percent approval from Graton voters in reaction to a Sonoma County Water Agency plan to connect a series of small treatment plants throughout the West County to a proposed facility in Guerneville.
At that time, rates were $826.00 per Equivalent Single Family Dwelling (ESD), but with four rate increases in the past five years, the rates now top $1,500.
The existing facility was in need of major upgrades, from the berm beneath that was inundated with gopher holes, to a floodwall that would protect the facilities from events such as the New Year’s 2006 flood, from which the district incurred expenses associated with sludge removal and replacing sheet rock and other equipment damaged in the flood.
Additionally, every pump had to be replaced due to age and a lot of them weren’t appropriate for tertiary treatment the district needs to achieve by order of the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (NCRWQCB).
In 2007, the district was hit with $56,000 in penalties by the NCRWQCB for late reporting and violating state and federal effluent limits for violations covering a period from Oct. 6, 2004 through Oct. 30, 2006, which led to a “cease and desist” order on discharges into Atascadero Creek.
The system has 652 users and operates on a budget of about $3 million.