||| FROM CAROL ANN ANDERSON, RON CLAUS, and JIM COOK |||
On Wednesday of this week, the “leadership” of Eastsound Water Users Association, calling itself the “Eastsound Water Team,” sent an email to EWUA members stating that we had “breached [our] fiduciary duties as board members” of the Association and should be recalled. All three of us reject this accusation in no uncertain terms.
The Eastsound Water Team obviously doesn’t understand to whom our fiduciary duty is owed. Our primary fiduciary duty is to represent the rights and interests of the EWUA members — not to keep information secret that the dominant board faction would rather not be made public. That is the principal reason we filed affidavits with the San Juan County Superior Court in connection with the Farm to Market lawsuit challenging the validity of the 2023 elections and their aftermath. We wanted the Court to understand what has been happening behind the scenes at EWUA. They don’t.
The 2023 elections were in error, both parties agree. Where we differ is on what was done to correct their worst error of not including a third slot on the ballot for the board seat being opened by Clyde Duke, whose term was ending last year. This is largely the basis of the Farm to Market lawsuit (which has not yet been decided by the Court).
EWUA Board President Teri Nigretto and Vice President Jim Nelson contend (through attorney Rochelle Doyea) that they exercised substantial compliance with the intent of the bylaws by appointing third-place vote-getter Jim Cook to a seat on the board —although Nelson has been contradictory in his statements to the Court about when that occurred. A December 15, 2023, EWUA press release in fact said that he had already been appointed by then.
But they inexplicably held Cook off the board until mid-January 2024 and did not allow him to participate in an appointment to fill the seventh board seat, which had come open after the November 2023 resignation of Joe Cohen. No good reason has been offered for this exclusion, which resulted in the appointment of Leith Templin to that seat.
Our affidavits to the Court reviewing this election bear directly on the manipulations that occurred, which is probably why the dominant board faction is so upset. They would much rather that this information be kept a closely guarded secret. This is yet another example of a worrisome pattern that Michael Riordan has dubbed a culture of secrecy at Eastsound Water.
Thus the proposal to recall the three of us can be seen for what it is — an attempted retribution for our continuing efforts to lift the sordid veil and tell the Court and EWUA members the hard, straight truth about what the dominant board faction has been up to behind closed doors. They try to present our actions as if they were opposed to the Association itself, but that is a canard. We instead oppose the secretive, unfair and illegitimate actions of the dominant board faction, not the organization or its members.
Please read our statements carefully at RecallWater.com. And if you agree these statements make good sense, please join us in the growing effort to recall the dominant board faction by signing the petition and proxy forms you can find on this website.
How about instead of putting all us locals through this ridiculous drama, all the board members just quit and let the membership vote for a new board? How embarrassing. The board should be ashamed of themselves. It’s gone on long enough. QUIT
Amen to that. The board members who appear to be engaged in a financial cover-up are holding on like barnacles to a sinking ship. What’s the point? It’s just a public water system. The more they cling to their board memberships in the face of such withering criticism, the more it seems that they really do have something to hide.
The EWUA Board — or at least the dominant faction — obviously does not understand and continues to abuse the word “fiduciary.” Former EWUA employee made this very same point almost a year ago in a comment responding to the Board’s August 23, 2023, Orcasonian article:
https://theorcasonian.com/eastsound-water-users-association-response/
It’s instructive to quote her response at length:
You just showed you don’t understand the basics of your responsibilities. . . . Fiduciary duty is not about holding executive sessions and keeping secrets. Fiduciary duty is defined as acting in total trust, good faith, and honesty. As a fiduciary you must act in a way that will benefit someone else financially. As a non-profit board member, this should be your guiding light. You are a fiduciary to the member-owners of the EWUA. You have not been paying attention regarding reckless spending, lack of controls, and poor management. This is the reason for the recall effort.
I cannot say it better than that.
Managing water is a big job with serious implications if it is not done well. Perhaps it is time to step aside in order for a chance at a team that is willing and able to work together. I am not taking sides in this struggle. I just find it very painful to watch people who truly mean well tear each other apart. I can’t imagine any of the current Board members find this a life enhancing role at this point. If the true concern is fiduciary oversight, continuing with this distracting fight assures little energy left for the Board to practice good governance.
I wonder if there is wisdom in having all Board members step down and call for a new election. I would just hope that any one who has served in the past and is currently on the Board not run. A fresh start with a team that understands how to work together would be a welcome change to the ongoing turmoil. Of course, in order for this concept to work, members would have to step up to run for the Commissioner seats and they would need to demonstrate leadership, management, and listening skills. Do we have community members who would want to step in?
The members of EWUA will have an opportunity to remove both the good and the bad directors. Doing so will be tempting to a lot of people, simply out of frustration and conflict-exhaustion. Many think that good rational people can always somehow persuade bad people to behave respectably. Removing everyone will result in a new set of people who will take several months to discover that the source of the problem is still there.
A better solution is for everyone who cares about the institution to take the time to look at the evidence and make an informed choice. As the old adage says, don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.
Why remove the good directors who recognized the ongoing problem and have been trying to make the right changes just because the “barnacles” (good analogy, David Bowman) are creating chaos in their cover-up attempts. The 4 who are the dominant Board faction really are hiding information, one of them for over a year.
Time to start over.
The board needs to stop holding back information.
A new entire board or not, this board has failed to provide for the members.
The idea to start over including the GM.
The problem is that the private Eastsound water is not ever going to be better with out making it a district.
The issues we have now with this BS is that the made up rules of the Board an GM are not following a better standard such as a district would provide.
A district would provide a county vote with the users only, counted by those not working for or with EWUA.
Making it fair and honest.
A district would provide the laws and procedures in a very detailed way. So none of the misinterpretation that continues at EWUA now.
A hiring of a qualified and certified GM will allow for a smoother transition as approvedby a real district. Not one $1 would be lost or not found as districts are audited.
This starts a new and would not allow this crap to continue with a district.
But what do I know, I’m just asking for integrity and honesty.
That in reality may be too much to ask.
Laura Rensberry’s August 2023 comment, a portion of which I quoted above, shows that the EWUA chaos has been going on for over a year and is NOT due to the minority board faction’s principled opposition, as two of them were not in office at that time. But two of the current board members were indeed involved then, including a central figure in what caused the problem to erupt. See a recent entry on the RecallWater.com website:
https://recallwater.com/index.php/2024/08/07/why-recall-jim-nelson/
If these two board members would resign, as Jennifer Smith implies, it would help spare the community a lot of unnecessary conflict.