Welsh Explains Why He Walked out of Sanitary District Board Meeting in Protest

Dennis Welsh said he of a board meeting with fellow district director George Quesada last week in part to illustrate his concern about the political direction of the board.

After the dramatic walkout during a meeting at which a new district board member was scheduled to be approved, Welsh said he wasn’t sure about the policy of voting in a new board member and wanted to know the minimum number of directors present to approve a new member.

Welsh said he requested a copy of all board policies at the April 1 meeting, the date that James Fritz’s retirement from the board became effective. Manager/Engineer Beverly James sent Welsh the document, but Welsh said there was nothing in there about rules for voting in a new board member.

“I repeatedly asked around to parliamentarians and people who have served on other boards and councils, and nobody seemed to know the rules,” he said.

District records show Welsh voted on a new policy about one year ago. Welsh, elected to the post in 2009, voted on May 24, 2010, in favor of new guidelines drawn up by the California Special District Association that says a five-member board that is depleted to four members for any reason must have a super-majority — at least three votes — to elect a new board member.

“That’s not something I recall, but it something that should have been reiterated by district counsel or the management or even the president of the board as we started this process” of finding a new board member, he said. “I probably couldn’t see the forest for the trees because I didn’t think we had things like this written in our policies. I went through the policies Bev sent me and it’s not in there. Now I wonder what other policies weren’t in there.”

Welsh said last week he believed he stayed in his seat while Quesada walked out, there still would have been a quorum. “But it hadn’t been made clear to me if there are three board members present and there are two votes for one candidate, is that enough to vote somebody in? It happens quite often where I have to ask district counsel about things like this. … It’s not real clear.”

The minutes of the May 24, 2010 meeting (attached to this story) show that Welsh was present when the board voted on Policy Handbook Item #5040. The item states in part: “If a vacancy exists on the board and a vote is taken to appoint an individual to fill said vacancy, three directors must vote in favor of the appointment for it to be approved. If two of the four directors present abstain, the appointment is not approved.”

The records show that Welsh was present at the meeting and that it was approved unanimously.

Welsh was a staunch opponent of what he calls privatization of the sanitary district’s new $90 million water treatment plant that went into full implementation last year. Veolia Water, an international company with vast experience in operating sewage facilities, is under contract for five years to operate the high-tech plant. The district expects to save taxpayers about $7 million by contracting out the plant management services — a dollar figure Welsh and other privatization foes vehemently doubted during the June 2009 election campaign.

“I just have strong feelings about putting in another person who is pro-privatization and pro-consolidation,” Welsh said. “… Obviously the others would like to put in  somebody they agree with and I’d want somebody I’ll agree with. I’m not going to be a go-along/get-along guy here. If I feel strongly about something, there are going to be a lot of ‘no’ votes.”

About four months after the district board approved the Veolia contract, Welsh was No. 1 in votes gathered during the November 2009 election in which incumbents Bill Long and Mike Di Giorgio were re-elected. Quesada and James Fritz were up for re-election this November, but Fritz retired as of April 1, leaving a vacancy that the board hoped to fill in its past two meetings.

Welsh and Quesada maintained that there wasn’t enough time to review the six candidates who applied for the post and interviewed at the April 20 meeting. With only four board members on the dais, a three-vote majority could not be reached. Quesada refused to be rushed on making a choice and , and on April 25 he and Welsh decided to walk out of the subsequent meeting in protest.

Long, Di Giorgio and Fritz often voted the same, securing a three-vote majority on most issues in recent years. Welsh and Quesada have decided it’s time for a change, and Welsh for one said the Novato Sanitary staff is not preparing the directors well enough to make some decisions. He levied a dissatisfactory grade for James, and criticized her for living outside of Novato (she lives in Berkeley).

“The board should be made up of people from all walks of life,” said Walsh, a former district employee. “You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand the issues that come in front of the board. You should have district management and staff you trust to advise you.

“When we had previous managers in this district, everything was laid out perfectly and the board rarely had to go against staff’s advise on something. They knew a topic had been researched to every detail and the recommendation was in the best interest of the town. Now we have people running the district who don’t even live here and don’t have to live with the repercussions of the board’s decisions. We have people in charge who don’t have kids in school here and are not part of the community. Things are changing around here and I don’t like it.”

But the main reason he walked out, he said, was “because I don’t see any reason why we can’t allow George to talk a little longer to decide. We don’t need to rush.”

Quesada, a 36-year veteran of the board, said at the two most recent board meetings that the time element was the reason he wasn’t ready to vote, but he later said the gist of his decision revolved around the .

"I resent some of the things they've done, and I'm going to do my damnedest to see that this unholy trinity cannot continue," he said of Di Giorgio, Long and Fritz.