[env-trinity] Westlands Board Relieves Tom Birmingham of General Counsel Duties

[Dan Bacher]

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/6/27/1542932/-Westlands-Board-Relieves-Tom-Birmingham-of-General-Counsel-Duties




Westlands Board Relieves Tom Birmingham of General Counsel Duties

by Dan Bacher

Looking for a job? The scandal-ridden Westlands Water District,  
considered the “Darth Vader” of California water politics by Tribes,  
fishermen and environmentalists,  is hiring a new general counsel.


The announcement came after the Westlands Board of Directors reported  
stripping Tom Birmingham, who has served as both the district’s  
general manager and general counsel, of his general counsel duties.

“The Westlands Water District Board of Directors decided to separate  
the role of General Manager and General Counsel in order to improve  
the District's decision-making processes and provide an additional  
layer of review for the District,” said Don Peracchi, President of the  
Westlands Board of Directors, in a statement. “The Legal Affairs  
Committee of the Board will immediately begin a search to hire a new  
General Counsel.”

The Board concluded that “the complexities involved in securing water  
supply, groundwater management, and other challenges facing the  
District require the full attention of the General Manager.”

The new General Counsel will have the responsibility of providing  
legal advice on proposed changes to existing policies, new policies,  
personnel matters, and any other matters requested by the Board,  
according to Peracchi.

“The Board believes the new organizational structure will promote more  
transparency and good government practices, and represents the  
beginning of a process to improve the decision-making and operations  
of the District.” he explained.

Westlands has been embroiled in a numbers of scandals in recent  
months. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on March 10  
charged Westlands, California’s largest agricultural water district,  
with “misleading investors” about its financial condition as it issued  
a $77 million bond offering.

In addition to charging the district, the SEC also charged Birmingham  
and former assistant general manager Louie David Ciapponi with  
misleading investors about its financial condition.

“Birmingham jokingly referred to these transactions as ‘a little Enron  
accounting’ when describing them to the board of directors, which is  
comprised of Westlands customers,” the SEC reported.

Westlands agreed to pay $125,000 to settle the charges, making it only  
the second municipal issuer to pay a financial penalty in an SEC  
enforcement action.

Birmingham agreed to pay a penalty of $50,000 and Ciapponi agreed to  
pay a penalty of $20,000 to settle the charges against them.

And then this month, the Associated Press reported that Westlands  
loaned $1.4 million at 0.84% interest to Jason Peltier, the district’s  
former deputy general manager, to buy a riverfront home on the  
Sacramento River. Nine years later, Peltier’s loan is still unpaid. (http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-ap-exclusive-water-giant-gave-14m-loan-to-official-2016-6 
)

On December 31, 2005, the New York Times revealed that Westlands had  
dumped over $1.1 million into a classic Astrourf group, El Agua Es  
Asunto de Todos— Water Is Everybody’s Business. The group purports to  
represent the “Latino” voice while promoting the diversion of more  
Delta water for corporate agribusiness interests on the west side of  
the San Joaquin Valley. (www.nytimes.com/...)

Westlands is one of main backers of the Governor Jerry Brown’s Delta  
Tunnels Plan, dubbed the “California WaterFix,” a project that will  
hasten the extinction of Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon,  
Central Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and  
other fish species.

The water district is also one of the main recipients of water from  
the Trinity River, the largest tributary of the Klamath River, via the  
Central Valley Project’s Trinity and Whiskeytown reservoirs. Westlands  
has frequently clashed in court with the Hoopa Valley, Yurok and Karuk  
Tribes and fishing groups over its attempts to block river flows  
needed to stop fish kills on the Klamath in recent years.

Westlands played a role in the fish kill of September 2002, when over  
68,000 adult salmon perished in the lower Klamath on the Yurok Indian  
Reservation in the largest fish kill of its kind in U.S. history. A  
lawsuit filed by Westlands and other agencies blocked the needed  
release of cold water down the river at a time when it was needed to  
alleviate the impacts of the fishery disaster.

The capture of the regulatory apparatus in California by Westlands and  
other corporate agribusiness interests was exemplified by the  
Department of Water Resources’ hiring of Susan Ramos "on loan" from  
the Westlands Water District to serve as "a liaison between all  
relevant parties" surrounding the Delta Habitat Conservation and  
Conveyance Program (DHCCP) and provide "technical and strategic  
assistance" to DWR. (www.indybay.org/...)

Documents obtained by this reporter under the California Public  
Records Act revealed that Ramos, the Deputy General Manager of  
Westlands at the time, was hired in an "inter-jurisdictional personal  
exchange agreement" between the Department of Water Resources and  
Westlands from November 15, 2009 through December 31, 2010. The  
contract was extended to run through December 31, 2011 and again to  
continue through December 31, 2012.

Westlands and other corporate agribusiness, much like the Western  
States Petroleum Association (WSPA) and Big Oil, have captured state  
and federal regulators to promote their anti-environmental agenda,  
exposing California’s reputation as the nation’s “green leader” to be  
nothing more than a big, unfounded myth.
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