The Lake Don Pedro Community Services District is losing its general manager, but trustees seemed reluctant last week even to acknowledge that fact, much less publicly state what they plan to do about the situation.

The LDPCSD board held a special meeting June 11. The agenda called for a closed session to discuss “public employee appointment/employment.”

Without making any kind of statement, President Wes Barton immediately asked for public comment and then attempted to adjourn to closed session.

Most people in the audience apparently already knew that General Manager Jeff Mann had submitted his resignation. They were all silent at first, evidently awaiting an official announcement.

But no statement was made before Barton tried to excuse the board to closed session.

Several of the ratepayers at the meeting seemed surprised and confused that the board evidently intended to deal with the matter entirely behind closed doors, without even announcing that Mann was leaving.

“Can you discuss hiring when you haven’t accepted (Mann’s) resignation?” asked Don Pedro resident Ruth Smith.

Board member Bill Kinsella agreed. “It should have been posted that Jeff had resigned,” he said.

Barton brushed aside concerns that discussing the situation in closed session would violate California’s Brown Act, the state law that governs open meetings.

“We’re trying to solve a problem,” Barton said. “Our attorney has given us the blessing (to hold discussions in closed session).”

Barton added, “I don’t believe we’ll be doing anything against the Brown Act.”

Some of the trustees looked uncomfortable when people in the audience started making comments about the resignation.

They started to squirm even more as one district employee, Dan Siria, voiced objections to a proposal he apparently had heard regarding Mann’s replacement.

Siria spoke out against the prospect of replacing Mann with the district’s financial administrator, Charise Reeves.

He said there would be problems having a manager who is not certified, and he pointed out that raising Reeves’ salary would take away funds needed to hire more utility workers.

There were attempts to hush him when he started to speak about unpublicized plans. But Siria replied, “If we can’t talk up now, and it’s a closed session, when can we talk about it?”

Reeves replied, “It’ll be (discussed) in open session at some point.”

Siria continued, urging the board to deal with the district’s need to hire more workers. He said the district has been sending out teams of only three workers, rather than four, to fix water line leaks, which he said violates Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules.

“If OSHA knew, they’d slap us with so many fines, they’d shut this place down,” he told the board.

“We need more workers,” he added. “You can’t get by with just a few.”

The board went into closed session without offering any responses or explanations.

When they returned to open session more than two hours later, Barton announced they were accepting Mann’s resignation because he has taken another position.

He added that they had “reviewed staffing (and) looked at how we might handle some folks Jeff (Mann) has interviewed before.)”

When asked by someone in the audience whether they were going to advertise to fill Mann’s position, Barton replied, “We probably will. Are we going to this week? No.”

He indicated the board would address the vacancy when they held their regular meeting June 21, which is scheduled to be Mann’s last day on the job.

Asked how the board planned to handle the management of the district, Barton said “There’s management companies; there’s consultants; there’s a whole bunch of options.”

He then gaveled the meeting adjourned.