This is a letter from a Merced River stakeholder/river landowner that provides another viewpoint on the recent East Merced Resource Conservation District board meeting. -- Badlands Journal editorial board
From: pferrigno@elite.net
To: Brwade@aol.com
CC: xxxx@bigvalley.net; billhatch@hotmail.com; xxxx@aol.com; xxxx@mercedschoolcu.org; xxxx@mercedriver.k12.ca.us; xxxx@santafeaggregates.com; dlevey@mercedsun-star.com; xxxx@ca.usda.gov
Subject: Post EMRCD Meeting
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2007 18:28:15 -0700
Bernie: I am conflicted as to what to do next. I have never been subjected to such thinly-veiled hostility as was experienced at the EMRCD Board meeting.
I’m not a big fan of process, per se, and most of this public records stuff drives me crazy….but it is offensive to me that the Board spent so much time yesterday discussing ways in which to make access to public records difficult and expensive … specifically for the Raptor group. People like Lydia Miller keep us honest; we are all just a little bit more careful to cross our t’s and dot our i’s because of them. The entire matter would be a moot point if this stuff could be put on the web site where it belongs so anyone could look at it whenever they wanted.
As a citizen of Merced County attending a public meeting of a Merced County Board I am once again embarrassed by these proceedings. As a private citizen with a need for representation I am horribly frustrated to the point of not being able to function. If water were not so important to the farmers on the River, I would walk away from the whole thing and have a much better quality of life.
The snide remarks, innuendo, and blatant misstatements from Cindy Lashbrook are very troublesome: point in fact, my brother was never invited to sit on the EMRCD Board although Cindy announced to one and all that he had been invited and had refused; point in fact, I never “shouted down” anyone who wanted public access at any MRS meeting (Cindy said that someone present at the Board meeting yesterday had done that; as it wasn’t you and wasn’t Lydia I guess that leaves me)—Lydia is probably the only person I have raised my voice in anger to at a meeting and it was at the Board of Supervisors not MRS; point in fact, the previous water monitoring training program, organized by Teri Murrison, was a bust—Mike is the only person who walked out of that training program with a water monitoring kit and that was only because he knew the Fish and Game rep who was doing the training. The lies promulgated by Ms. Lashbrook become fact when they are not refuted.
Has the impropriety of the way in which the grants are administered not occurred to anyone on the Board? It is not appropriate for beneficiaries of grant funds to sit on the Board: it is a concept called “arms length “ objectivity; without it the EMRCD can be seen as being politicized, chasing the board members’/grant beneficiaries’ biases rather than the legitimate policy concerns of the citizens. Instead of attacking the messenger, it would be more prudent to examine the actions of your staff in this regard.
The stakeholders (no matter with what group—or no group—they are affiliated) are citizens. We, the Merced River Property Owners, had legitimate concerns about the grant. Whether it was submitted by the MRS, the EMRCD, or the Rand Corporation, we would have opposed the grant as it is adverse to the interests of the majority of the River farmers.
Cindy’s contention that the grant really wasn’t concerned with public access to private property; and, her further statement that the access issue and all of the other things in the grant which were the basis of our opposition were only included because they were a part of the RFP is ridiculous. It is also fraud. I was a grant administrator at UC-SF for several years; you cannot state you are going to do something in order to get a grant and then not do it. If Merced County has other grants which were obtained on this same basis… what were they thinking?
I don’t believe the EMRCD Board is guilty of malfeasance or misfeasance; I believe you are all doing the best you can do in the situation where you are running your businesses and volunteering your time for the EMRCD. I do object to the level of personal hostility which was in evidence. We (the Bettencourt family) tried to defuse this whole thing before we resorted to setting up another MRS meeting. We offered to meet anywhere, with anyone; we offered to host the meeting at one of our homes or at a restaurant. The offers were ignored.
You need to put aside your defensiveness and notice that there is a pattern here: your facilitators were too busy meeting the grant deadline to get the grant concept proposal out to MRS members (did you notice that the grant is dated February 1, 2007; which would have allowed more than adequate time for MRS review); your facilitators were too busy getting ready for the River Fair to get the grant out to Lydia and me on a timely basis; your facilitators were too busy going out of town for four days to reconsider the UC-M location even though our prediction of significant parking problems and lost attendees was right on.
It would be appropriate for us to try, once again, to defuse the issue but I really don’t have the energy and the Property Owners I represent would not ask me to be subject again to being scolded, like an errant schoolgirl, by the EMRCD Board. We will continue the MRS once your paid facilitators are gone. We don’t need to be paid to do the right thing for the River.
Pat Ferrigno