||| FROM STEVE SMITH for RECALL WATER |||
The recall process has been started. Petitions requesting a Member meeting were submitted to Eastsound Water Users Association (EWUA). According to the bylaws, EWUA must send within 35 days (after July 22 and before August 26, 2024), a notice to all Members designating the date and location of the special Member meeting. The meeting must be held by September 30, 2024.
The purpose of the Member meeting will be for the Members to determine if Jim Nelson, Teri Nigretto, Mike Cleveland, and Leith Templin should be retained or recalled as Directors of EWUA.
We do not know when or where the meeting will be. We encourage Members to attend the meeting in person but to sign the proxy form used by RecallWater in case the meeting is set for a time you cannot be there.
The directors subject to the recall attempt should not be the individuals counting the votes. A mutually-agreeable independent neutral election inspector should be named to conduct the recall process. To date, those targeted for recall have refused to allow this to happen.
If you want to see the details as to why the Members are being asked to recall several directors, please visit the RecallWater.com site.
**If it wouldn’t cause you financial distress to take out a modestly-priced, voluntary subscription (HERE), you’d be doing a real service. If it would, then no worries, we’re happy to share with you.**
The Recall Water clock has finally begun to tick.
The question is, will Steve Smith sit for an interview, something he has previously refused to do?
I’d rather see an interview with Dan Burke so that someone can ask why EWUA no longer discloses his compensation/salary.
Hi David,
Thanks for the question. My salary is always available, and I have interviewed with Toby Cooper:
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/916055851
Let me know if you have any questions,
Dan
Hi, Dan – the ProPublica database of IRS 990 returns is indeed helpful for learning the compensation of nonprofit managers. But currently they are only available through 2022, when you apparently earned about $148k. What was your total compensation for 2023 and what will it be this year… or do we have to wait a year or two for the new 990s to become available online to find out?
Dan’s board-authorized salary for 2022 was $130,752.
This figure was verified by Joe Cohen who was Secretary/Treasurer in 2022 and President the year Dan was hired.
The paystub that revealed to me that Dan had been overpaying himself (given to the Board by Jim Nelson and Clyde Duke in their attempt to legitimize the checks Dan had written to himself) had one remaining pay period for the year. According to that paystub, Dan’s wages for 2022 should have totaled to $143,987.
The salary reported on the 990 is $148,580
I would not say that Dan’s salary is “always available”.
Tenar, by “salary” do you mean “total compensation,” that is, salary plus benefits? Also I’m not clear if the paid vacation, sick leave and the like are integrated into the salary, or are in addition to it, in which case they would be added to total compensation.
Thanks for your clarifications, in the meantime…
The difference between Burke’s salary of 141,062 as reported on the Form 990 (not $148,580, which is salary plus benefits) and the board-authorized salary of $130,752 is $10,310 — awfully close to the sum of the two unauthorized checks, for $6,071.11 and $4262.00 that he issued himself in late 2022, supposedly for “unused time off.” And salaried employees like Dan do not normally get paid for unused time off, according to the EWUA employee handbook.
Michael writes above that “salaried employees like Dan do not normally get paid for unused time off, according to the EWUA employee handbook”…that’s putting it mildly…the employee handbook clearly and unequivocally states that salaried employees are NOT entitled to compensation for unused time off…period !
I gotta wonder who on the EWUA board investigated the matter and approved those self-payments which Dan made to himself rather than calling him on it and demanding restitution…?…
In a mid-February “Combined Report,” Clyde Duke and Jim Nelson examined the two Burke self-payments and explained them away as “accrued vacation pay disbursements” when such payments were then (and still are) disallowed by the EWUA employee handbook for salaried employees.
In response to claims being made by Hall and Smith that August, five members of the EWUA Board of Directors — Duke, Nelson, Scott Lancaster, Joe Cohen and Michael Cleveland — published an August 23, 2023, Orcasonian article titled “Eastsound Water Users Association response” stating that (in bold type) “No financial malfeasance or misappropriation of member funds was found” [by the forensic accounting firm Acuity Forensics]. This was misleading at best. Rather, they went on to state, “the investigator fund that Mr. Burke’s cash out of PTO [paid time off] appeared to be noncompliant with the employee handbook, which may have resulted in a small overpayment of the managers own earned PTO.” Here is the full article:
https://theorcasonian.com/eastsound-water-users-association-response/
One wonders what they consider to be a large overpayment. And ANY cash-out of unused PTO is against EWUA policy for salaried employees — except at retirement or resignation.
The amounts that Klein and Riordan are talking about pale in comparison to the many tens of thousands that “recall water” and the lawsuit are costing us EWUA members!
Good point, Dan. If last year’s election had been run properly, none of these legal problems would likely have emerged. Woops, they forgot that a third board position was opening due to term limits. And then, a fourth position due to a last minute resignation. Had they corrected this issue by spending ca. $2k to re-run the election early on, there would be no Farm to Table lawsuit about the election flaws. The actions of the previous and current Board have cost EWUA members tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, with no end in sight yet.
Several current Board members and some other concerned members of EWUA have been working towards a recall effort for those current Board members who have been continuing to spend down our treasury on legal fees and other distractions from the capital improvements and maintenance that our water system always needs. How much pipe could have been replaced with, say, $100k that was instead spent on legal expenses?
Instead, we have multiple egos involved in this conflict that do not hesitate to take actions that cost our members and drain the EWUA coffers of hard-won accumulated cash. I am referring to both sides of this conflict, just to be clear.
The four board members in question have apparently decided to move the annual meeting and board votes from the end of the year to September, in an apparent attempt to short-circuit the recall meeting that has been called for by member petition. What if the recall is voted to proceed, but happens after a very early annual meeting? I’m sure various lawyers would have differing opinions about the implications that would need resolution via a number of hearings and much research. And then, of course, the validity of a new election just nine months after the last one would need to be evaluated as well. The potential rabbit hole grows ever larger…
Robert, don’t overlook the elephant in the room: that one member of the recall/lawsuit side has proposed taking over a 51% ownership of EWUA!
Care to cite your source?
Maybe try this one: https://recallwater.com/index.php/privitization/
Hi Dan…I thought I’d rebutted that claim in my Orcasonian Guest Opinion of June 25th…sorry to find that this misinformation is still around being used as a cudgel to distract from the ongoing mismanagement of EWUA funds which are being used to defend a lawsuit where there’s no disagreement that the past election was flawed.
Rather than re-running the election, the Board chose, contrary to the recommendation of their attorney, to fight the lawsuit thus triggering the colossal legal expenses you mention in your previous post.
For your reading enlightenment, Dan, here is a link to Fred’s June 25 article on the subject:
https://theorcasonian.com/guest-opinion-from-a-concerned-eastsound-water-user/
Because uncritical islanders like Dan easily swallow and sometimes regurgitate the misinformation being fed us by the EWUA “leadership,” unfounded rumors like this one get launched and take on a life of their own. As Keith Light suggests above, please check your evidence before adding to the confusion.
Thank you Keith, Fred, Steve, Robert, Michael, Tenar, Carol, Klaus, Cook, and Paul, et al.
Thank you for the link provided above Keith… reading Steve Smith’s piece is a real eye-opener, one that helps put many of the pieces together.
One of the things reading Steve’s piece helped me resolve was why Paul Kamin’s past study on “Vacation Rentals and water usage” was discredited so quickly and then shoved under the rug as quickly as possible… shame.
I find it ironical that in a world (our world), where we pay to have a utility infrastructure that is built to accommodate a million tourists a year… that those the least responsible for the problems are continually the ones having to pay the most. With, in this case, the larger utility users being required to pay less across the board than all others.
Like many things in the county, I feel there should be a rating system that utilizes a gradient based upon what the usage is for and what the social impacts are to the community, our shared environment, and ecological systems. IMO, I feel that there are some high-use activities, like farming perhaps, that deserve a break, while there are other more predatory activities, like vacation rental operations, that do not.
Dan, who is it that’s trying to buy 51% ownership in EWUA? Please provide a link to this.
If any one of you that believes these rumors would read the EWUA by-laws you would realize that Steve could never own 51 percent of EWUA. First, any change in ownership has to be voted on by all the members. Second, Steve would have to buy 51 percent of the properties in the system to obtain that majority by himself. Neither of these cases is feasible. Whoever started and those who continue this rumor have no idea how the membership in EWUA works. Get over this idea that Steve wants to take over the world and come to the realization that it is not going to happen. See recallwater.com to become better informed.
It would be very helpful to many longtime islanders if you would include your middle initial, regardless of the context.
Thanks
Sorry Mia. So that there is less confusion, (and as I assume you know who the other commenters are that are on this thread), my guess is that you’re referring to me. I’m Michael “D” sometimes known as “MJ”. I believe it’s clear that the four majority board members of EWUA have ill-served this community long enough, and should step down.
I’m Michael “MJ” Johnson. I’ve lived in the San Juans going on 35 years, and I approve of this message.