Quesada Stands Firm on Timeline to Fill Sanitary Board Seat

Directors of the will get another crack at filling a vacant seat on the board Monday afternoon, but another stalemate is expected just five days after meeting at which none of the six candidates could secure the minimum of three board votes.

The empty seat on the district board was created by the April 1 retirement of James Fritz, who was appointed to the board in 2002 and re-elected in 2004 and 2008. With Fritz gone, there are four at-large seats occupied, making it tricky to nail down three votes.

Directors are scheduled to take another vote at 4:30 p.m. Monday at the. However, board member George Quesada said Monday morning that he will make a motion to have the item taken off the agenda, and he will end the meeting if he does not have his motion seconded.

“I am in the driver’s seat on that item,” he said.

Quesada said at the April 20 meeting that he wanted several weeks in the least to review candidate qualifications and doesn’t understand how his cohorts could possibly make their decision so quickly. His demand for more time effectively eliminated the board’s ability to get three votes that day, resulting in a push to the April 25 agenda.

“We have had less than a week, and it’s been Holy Week, so there’s not an awful lot you can do,” Quesada said. “I have wanted to contact some of the applicants and talk with them more on the phone. There are so many excellent candidates, and if anything most of them are overqualified.”

If the board cannot muster three votes for one candidate before May 28, a date that marks 60 days since Fritz resigned, the Marin County Board of Supervisors will have 30 days to vote on it. No matter who is appointed, the term only runs until the election in November.

Quesada, who has served on the board for 36 years, said he might be ready to make a vote for the vacant seat at the May 9 or May 23 meeting.

Of the current political state of the board, Quesada said, “I have a lot of things on my mind that bother me, and I’m not ready to make the public yet. I will express myself at some point. There are things that need to be resolved.”

Quesada, who turns 85 on April 28, is up for re-election in November. He said he has not missed a single regular meeting in more than 21 years, a span of more than 500 meetings. He has been board president nine times but been passed over for the seat five times, he said.

“I would hope that my attendance and track record would count for something,” he said. “I have always taken action in the best interest of the ratepayers of the district.”

One candidate interviewed on April 20, wastewater expert Jean Mariani, received two yes votes — from Board President Bill Long and Mike Di Giorgio —a no vote from Dennis Welsh and a “pass” from Quesada.

Di Giorgio nominated Mariani, an employee of the Sonoma County Water Agency with more than 30 years working in the water world. She is past president of the California Association of Sanitation Agencies and previously served on the Ross Valley Sanitation District and Central Marin Sanitation Agency.

Suzanne Brown Crow, an attorney who helped lead a campaign that fought against the district contracting out for management of its new $90 million water treatment plant, got one vote from Welsh. Crow had been an organizer of a group that ran a successful referendum campaign in 2010 to place the district’s contract with Veolia before voters. Crow and other No on Measure F campaign backers were narrowly defeated in a June election that required a recount.

Candidates who applied and interviewed but did not receive a nomination April 20 were retired PG&E engineer Donald Brand, retired truck driver John Coleman, retired Chevron engineer Brant Miller and retired property and facilities manager Jerry Peters.