Paul Bettenhausen's Position Statement

By Paul Bettenhausen

RESTORE TRANSPARENCY. The practice of your current Board is to debate and devise budget items and expenditures in private committee. Upon committee finalization these budget and expenditure items are brought before the public and the entire Board, where little to no public explanation or deliberation ensues before the items are UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED. This leaves the Rate Payer in the dark as to the rationale and intent behind Board decisions. Instead I favor an open public debate of budget items and expenditures. In addition I believe that it's time to "open the books" and examine, for instance, why the same water district Board that has managed to amass a ONE BILLION DOLLAR FUNDING RESERVE apparently lacks the will, capability or determination to rein-in expenditures and rate increases. On November 2nd I ask you to help me RESTORE OPENNESS AND TRANSPARENCY to your Irvine Ranch Water District.

RESTORE RATE PAYER CONTROL AND OVERSIGHT. For decades your Irvine Ranch Water District Board of Directors has been able to control the agenda and sustain the status quo by appointing hand-selected and like-minded individuals to fill vacant Board seats. This is how four out of the five current Board Members first attained their seats and although permissible, this practice ENTRENCHES a singular mind-set, SUPPRESSES viable alternate view-points and ideas, and DETERS examination and scrutiny of past and present Board decisions, objectives, and programs. If elected on November 2nd, I will serve as the Rate Payer's representative and will do everything in my power and authority to end the entrenched "business as usual" mentality and to RESTORE RATE PAYER CONTROL AND OVERSIGHT to your Irvine Ranch Water District.