James Johnson will open up the CCWD board

If water weren’t a proxy for the development wars on the Coastside, it would still be controversial. It’s precious, the demand is growing, the supply is static, and climate change puts what supply we have at risk.

The Coastside County Water District (CCWD) has enough on its plate without the district picking fights with everyone else on the Coastside.

Coastsider endorses James "Jay" Johnson for CCWD board. Johnson is intelligent, qualified, reasonable, and independent. He’s a political newcomer who’s interested in public service. He’d shake up the cozy consensus in Coastside’s most aggressive public agency.

When you look at CCWD’s efforts to control recycled water on the Coastside, commitment to use recycling to increase (rather than mitigate) development, offer to supply water to a huge and controversial development outside the district, desire to expand their authority to the sewer and water districts they don’t control on the Midcoast, and struggle against the authority of the Coastal Commission, you wonder how they have time to meet the needs of their ratepayers at a reasonable price. Of all the districts on the Coastside, CCWD is the only one that seems to envision itself as an empire on the move.

At the same time, the district faces supply uncertainty and rising prices for the water it buys from Hetch Hetchy, as well as local supply issues due to climate change and planned growth. And then there is the fact that CCWD has more than doubled water rates in less than ten years.

Like I said, you’d think they’d be content to supply water to their customers.

Incumbent Chris Mickelsen’s anonymous hate mail to a member of the Half Moon Bay Planning Commission is symptomatic of CCWD’s aggressive approach toward people who don’t share its vision.

Your best chance for change on the CCWD is to cast a single vote for Jay Johnson even though there are two open seats.  If you want to cast a second vote, you should vote for Jerry Donovan.