Move to censure director draws crowd at CSD

Breaking News: CSD Board President Steve Marquette resigns (Letter)

August 12, 2009 – © Foothill Express

Wes Barton

Lake Don Pedro Community Services District directors faced a standing-room-only crowd of angry residents, some of them booing and hissing, at a special meeting August 10.

The meeting was called to revisit an issue from the previous week which was termed a “possible violation” of the Brown Act, which governs public meetings in California.

At the earlier meeting, three board members had voted to censure their fellow director, Wes Barton, because of critical comments he had made in letters to the editor of the Foothill Express.

However, the board’s attorney later informed them that the vote violated the Brown Act because the public had not been allowed to comment.

On Monday, the directors held a special meeting to correct the violation. About 40 residents attended, many of them voicing support for Barton and his criticisms of the board.

Well into the 3 ½-hour meeting, the directors voted unanimously to rescind the illegal vote. The crowd applauded.

Bill Kinsella

But their applause turned to groans and jeers when Director Bill Kinsella made a new motion to censure Barton.

In a written statement distributed with this week’s agenda, Kinsella said, “I am angry (that) a sitting member of this board is so callous and self-serving he has seen fit to publicly embarrass, demean and insult all board members and the community with his microcephalic ramblings that this is a do-nothing board.”

His letter accused Barton of moving “behind the scenes to force (CSD) staff and operations to conform to his thinking.”

He also said Barton cost the district more than $2,000 by contacting the CSD’s attorney and engineer without permission. He added that Barton violated the board’s code of ethics, which say that members should “commit themselves to emphasizing the positive, avoiding double talk, hidden agendas, gossip, backbiting and other negative forms of interaction.”

Kinsella’s motion was seconded by Director Emery Ross.

In his defense, Barton said he had received direction from the board to work with district staff on such areas as job descriptions. He said he needed to talk with the CSD’s attorney and engineer to understand various aspects of the district’s operations, as well as to be “preventive or (to) correct … misdirected actions of other board members as they postured.”

Steve Marquette

 He explained that his first letter to the editor was to answer a ratepayer’s question and to offer a suggested “fix” for the district’s financial woes.

His second letter to the editor was to dispute the newspaper’s reporting of a $708,000 budget shortfall, which, Barton said, incorrectly added in loan payments of $104,926 as well as a $250,000 “bank call” to repay part of an expired loan for their long-delayed, never-completed automatic meter reading project.

Those numbers, added to the operations loss, added up to a final net loss of $708,000, but Barton argued that the number reported should have been the operations loss of $353,469.

Barton is a retired financial consultant who worked with more than 60 companies during his career.

He reiterated his concerns about the district’s financial future during this week’s meeting, saying the LDPCSD is losing money at a rate of about $33,000 per month.   

“We may not even be a year away from bankruptcy,” he said.

In going to the newspapers, the local county supervisor, the engineers and the CSD’s attorney, he said, “I have been smart enough to ask for help” in an attempt to save the district.

Sally Punte

Many community members spoke out in favor of Barton’s work on the CSD board and against censuring him for his public comments.

Charles Day said, “(Barton) can say anything he wants, he can write anything he wants, as long as he doesn’t give the impression he’s speaking for the whole board. And it’s quite clear from his (published) comments that he’s not speaking for the whole board.”

Ruth Smith took Kinsella to task for his motion to censure Barton. She pointed out that Kinsella recently wrote an article in the homeowners’ newsletter entitled “Whatever Happened to Freedom of Speech?” In it, Kinsella defended himself after he took a great deal of heat for publishing negative items about community members.

Tony Marchesiello, a local accountant, said, “what (Barton) did was exactly what he should have done. … He’s come up with solutions. You don’t censure him for that; you commend him.”

Several people chastised the board for even pursuing the censureship at all.

“I cannot believe the bad sportsmanship and pettiness,” said Vicki Keefe. “This makes the entire board look like a bunch of Bozos.”

When the vote to censure was finally taken, it was 2-3, with Ross and Kinsella voting in favor and board President Steve Marquette switching his previous vote to join Director Sally Punte and Barton voting against the motion.

Emery Ross

Kinsella then protested that Barton’s vote shouldn’t count, and that the vote should be recorded as 2-2.

During the portion of the meeting set aside for director’s comments, Marquette apologized to the crowd for the way the meeting had gone, particularly the “viciousness of the attacks.”

He hinted he may not put up with it much longer.

“If the fighting continues, I would rather not be a part of it,” he said.

In response to some spectators’ criticism of how the meeting was handled, Marquette offered to step aside as board president, but no one responded to that comment.

He pointed out that the district has declared a fiscal emergency and will be meeting again soon to discuss measures to turn the situation around.

“If we don’t come together, bankruptcy is in our future,” Marquette said.

That would be disastrous for the community, he said, because if the state comes in to take over the CSD, “the rates would increase much more than this board would do.”

The next regular board meeting is scheduled for August 17 at 1 pm in the LDPCSD Board Room, 9751 Merced Falls Road.