SLO County water district violated public meeting law in ‘deliberate’ move, DA says - San Luis Obispo Tribune

A local water district violated the Brown Act by making key decisions about water resources in closed session, according to a letter filed by the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office.

The cease-and-desist letter, dated Nov. 4, alleges the board of directors of the Shandon-San Juan Water District, which manages a portion of the water in the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin, made decisions about water sources in closed session at a March 16 meeting.

“The board’s decision to go into closed session appears to have been deliberate and for the sole purpose of preventing others from learning that it was attempting to appropriate water rights,” the District Attorney’s Office wrote.

The session was closed due to discussions of “potential litigation” but the meeting minutes and agenda showed that the board of directors made a decision to apply to divert water sources and enter into an agreement during the closed session, according to the letter.

There were two key decisions made during the closed session, according to the letter.

First, the water district’s board of directors decided to apply to the State Water Resources Control Board for permission to divert water from the Salinas River at Santa Margarita Lake and at the Nacimiento Reservoir Dam, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

Second, the board authorized board president Willy Cunha to enter into an agreement with the Nacimiento Regional Water Management Advisory Committee (NRWMAC), the agency stated in its letter.

“These are clearly matters that fall within the ‘subject matter jurisdiction’ of your board ... and include taking steps toward establishing water rights,” the District Attorney’s Office wrote. “As such, any discussion about these matters by a majority of the board — even if a decision were not made — should have occurred in open session.”

The Ralph M. Brown Act is a law designed to promote government transparency by requiring that public agencies meet in the open so the public can ask questions and engage in discourse.

The Brown Act defines a meeting as any time the majority of a board listens, discusses or takes action on relevant subject matter.

Some topics can be discussed in closed session — including litigation, which is designed to protect attorney-client privilege — but the justifications for a public agency having discussions in closed session are very narrow under the law, according to the letter.

The decision to discuss diverting water resources and a pending agreement with the Nacimiento water advisory committee in closed session, instead of in the open, was a purposeful one, the District Attorney’s Office wrote.

According to the agency, these assertions are supported by statements Steve Sinton, a water district board member, made on June 2 regarding the application to the California State Water Resources Control Board.

“Our district decided to go ahead and apply for the water. And since this would be an appropriative water right, and under appropriative water rights first in time has the highest priority, it probably is obvious to everyone why we couldn’t discuss our plans and thoughts with anyone else until we had the application in place,” Stinton said during the meeting, according to the letter. “If we had discussed it prematurely there wouldn’t have been any water to apply for. So we did apply on Feb. 4. We applied for 14,000 acre-feet from Nacimiento and 14,000 acre-feet from the Salinas River…”

The District Attorney’s Office alleges there were five more meetings in January and February 2021 where the board improperly entered closed session, citing discussions of potential litigation.

There was “no reportable action” after four of the meetings, but at the Jan. 25 meeting, the board unanimously voted on a particular action during closed session that was not disclosed, according to the meeting minutes.

A few days later, on Feb. 4, the board applied for permission from the state water board to appropriate water from the Salinas River at the Salinas Dam and the Nacimiento River at Nacimiento Dam, according to the letter.

The District Attorney’s Office wrote in its letter that “it appears that the board had been engaging in closed sessions over a period of months to discuss and plan for making the applications” in violation of the Brown Act.

The District Attorney’s Office demanded the Shandon-San Juan Water District “cease, desist and not repeat” these Brown Act violations and requested a written commitment from the water district.

Sinton and Cunha had not returned requests for comment as of 1 p.m. Monday.

source: https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/water-and-drought/article255643926.html

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