[env-trinity] Trinity Journal editorial: County water stance shouldn't be a secret Selection of TMC representative raises larger question

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.trinityjournal.com/opinion/editorials/article_8e3fe950-8134-11eb-ab40-7b4fc321d3c6.html
County water stance shouldn't be a secret

Selection of TMC representative raises larger question
   
   - Mar 10, 2021
    
   -  0


District 1 Sup. Keith Groves has held the seat for several years and was reappointed Jan. 5 to represent the board on the TMC. However, District 3’s newly elected Sup. Liam Gogan and others have argued he is the supervisor with the most experience on river restoration issues, having worked for more than 30 years as a Trinity River fishing guide and participating in thousands of hours of stakeholder input on the Trinity River Restoration Program to the TMC that oversees it.

In the end, the board voted 4-1 to have Groves continue as the primary representative and named Gogan to serve as the alternate with the likelihood he’ll move up to the primary spot soon.

We believe Gogan should be the primary representative at some point, but we have no problem with him serving as the alternate for six months or a year to get his feet wet (or wetter, so to speak). Together, they probably make a pretty good team.

Frankly, it was a Groves’ comment during the debate that worries us more.

“You need understanding of the county overview before just stepping in without the board’s input and support,” Groves said to Gogan. “And you will find out in closed session the stances we’ve taken that are not made public.”

Should Trinity County’s stances on critical water issues be a secret? We think not. Everyone from the federal government to the state to its local citizenry should have a full and unencumbered understanding on where the Board of Supervisors sits on Trinity County water issues.

Groves’ comment is representative of past boards’ tendency to do most of their heavy lifting in closed session, whether or not such is permitted by the Brown Act. Nor have they been particularly adept at reporting out anything more than the bare necessities from closed sessions; sometimes not even that. Let’s hope this new board moves away from such tactics.

In fact, it was in closed session, as an emergency item, that supervisors decided in December 2019 that Trinity County would join San Joaquin County in filing a formal legal response to the Westlands Water District efforts to permanently lock in its contract for Central Valley Project water deliveries, which would likely have severe implications on local water availability. This was another “and you will find out” moment.

And while the Brown Act does permit government entities to consider litigation in closed session, generalities on whether or not to join the response could and should have been done in open session for the public, with specific legal tactics saved for the closed session.

It’s almost ironic that next week, March 14-20, is Sunshine Week, an annual initiative to promote open government, and we’re still talking about the lack of openness in local county government.

Water in Trinity County will always be divisive. As we’ve pointed out numerous times, the Trinity River serves many masters — lake interests, river and fish interests, and power. It’s a balancing act that will never make all three factions completely happy. And we won’t even get into the issue of Trinity receiving zero dollars for the roughly half a million acre feet of increasingly valuable water shipped annually to the Central Valley Project.

Still, the county’s stance on water issues shouldn’t be a secret.

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