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Water district bill gets Assembly panel nod

May 7, 2014
Marc Levine

Marc Levine

A bill to create a water management district for the Paso Robles water basin barely navigated its initial legislative test in Sacramento Wednesday afternoon, slipping through the Assembly Local Government Committee on a 6-1 vote.

Assemblyman Katcho Achadjian (R-San Luis Obispo) is carrying the measure, AB 2453, next step for which is a vote on the lower house floor. The bill garnered the bare minimum votes necessary to move on.

Democrats Luis Alejo, Steve Bradford, Richard Gordon, and Melissa Melendez joined Achadjian and fellow Republican Marie Waldron to move the bill. Committee vice-chair Marc Levine, a Democrat, voted against the proposal.

Two county supervisors spoke on the bill: Bruce Gibson endorsed approval, while Debbie Arnold asked the committee to deny passage because it provides for a management and policy board whose membership is based on acreage owned, and not one property owner, one vote.

Arnold expressed frustration with the outcome of the hearing, after which she told CalCoastNews, “If we need special legislation to create a governing board to include everyone’s voice after the district is created, then why don’t we feel the need to include everyone’s voice to create the district in the first place?”


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Well, the bureaucracy run, taxpayer funded revenue tap is about to be turned on. More of our hard earned money down the drain.


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Votes based on acreage would be blatantly unfair because the water is a resource that all people living in the area should have an equal voice about its use and distribution and cost. Simply stated the supreme court decision giving acreage a deciding factor on votes is for areas where crops are the only factor and there are little or no residential factors. This is certainly not the case here. Our water should not be a profit making business for the large land owners that may or may not live here.


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How would real-estate work if the signs read For Sharing instead of For Sale?


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Think about the ownership in a company through the purchase of shares (wall street) and it comes time to vote, one share is one vote, ten thousand shares is ten thousand votes, that’s how it works.


Creating a water district is only for the purpose of recognizing ownership on a per share basis and has nothing to do with mitigating those dry wells. Again the water WILL eventually go to he most votes per acre and the district will be then be proportionately compensated. This is nothing new, just as fare as a taking with compensation can be.


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Then you would like, it if say, Gerge Soros had the controlling share and

wanted to sell the water to San Luis Obispo?


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I get what you are saying, %100, actually in one sense that has already occured yet nobody gets concerned until there is a drought, their well goes dry while others are farming that once obviously dormant farm land. Forget the sniveling once open pasture or dry land farming history, it’s all Ag, as posted on public documents.


Yes there is a “gold rush” in the form of a “use it or loose it moment of clearity.” If I had one of those big holdings I’d do everything possible to protect my rights-of-owners too. And what is really sad, if I did not do this, the pressures of SMART GROWTH will take it as a result my negligence, something that city dwellers do not understand until they have their privacy removed by the city council.


Bottom line, if land owners are not diligent, protecting their rights-of-owners, they will be lost as will any reason to own property. Think about owning a condo with an outragous association fee, staggering property taxes, CCNR’s, etc. then try to explain the benifits of property ownership within that bubble? One thing for sure this is where the water will eventually go but atleast the diligent land owner will get paid for it.


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I guess you would side with Tom Perkins and the Tom Perkins System of taxes and voting:


“The Tom Perkins system is: You don’t get to vote unless you pay a dollar of taxes,” Perkins said.


“But what I really think is, it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes. How’s that?”


(Tom Perkins is a venture capitalist, one of the wealthiest in the country.)


Defending anything outside of one person one vote (U.S. Sup.Ct. Baker v. Carr 1962, and Reynolds v. Sims 1964) flies in the face of the Constitutional standards of “…of the people, by the people, for the people”, and “All men are created equal”. Don’t you think?


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Katcho is not really a good Assemblyman in my opinion. He is siding with big business once again. If one were to look at his campaign contributors, they would see Monsanto on the list. He will never again get my vote.


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So when there is money to be made and power to be grabbed, look at the ones who are

pushing this through without listening and altering the vote to make it a fair governing body. Why is Bruce Gibson touting his endorsement for this? It’s not even his district! Those

affected by his endorsement have zero power to vote his ass off the BOS.

Katcho is placating and wants to play both sides witnessed by his statements. There are

issues yet he continues to push forward. When it’s passed he can then fall back and say, well

I express my concerns but I’m just the messenger, I couldn’t do anything about that!


Money and power, it’s as simple as that. They will never stop.


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