Candidate for
Board Member; Moulton-Niguel Water District; Division 3

I am a conservative with empathy towards the Tea Party. The government is growing out of control with congress members seeking money for their own districts without regarding to fiscal responsibility. It is the nature of government to grow until the citizens eventually get together and stop it. Government spending is not productive to the economy whereas private sector spending produces growth overall and long term. The only hope for this country to ever get out of debt is to grow substantially. Raising taxes cannot even theoretically pay down the deficit and just retards future growth. The idealistic goal of taking from the rich and giving to the poor just creates more poor. As Ronald Reagan used to say, "a rising tide floats all boats". The water district is a unique business model. As a public utility it doesn't have the profit motive as such. However, managing the financial status is still critical as there is a limited supply of water, water storage and water treatment facilities. The forces of supply and demand are still in operation and it is therefore the task of management to correctly price water at it actual market value. Pricing water below market value creates a shortage and overpricing water creates a surplus. As a public utility it is not in the interest of the community to price the water too high or too low. Historically the price of water has been set too low, creating a shortage. Further, the needed capital to expand reliability and supply are not available, causing even more shortage problems. Many of the water insiders are responsible for this situation because of this lack of foresight, and there is a tendency to exchange the promise of low water rates for the re-election of their cozy insider positions. Currently the water insiders have a plan to allocate water, fine you if you go over your water allocation and even put people in jail who don't reduce their usage. Many of the parameters set to determine your specific allocation are imperfect and fundamentally unfair. They will be taking satellite photos of your home and looking at historical data from your address. But there are so many human factors that make it impossible to allocate fairly. None of this would be needed if water was sold at the actual market value. At Moulton Niguel the cash comes from a combination of taxes and water rates. Typically the water rates themselves leave the district in the red, or losing money. In other words, the more water that is sold, the more money that is lost. The deficit is made up with property taxes and other tax money. However, in my opinion, these property tax revenues should not be used to keep the district solvent but should provide for the increased storage, reliability and infrastructure requirements of the future. The district in cooperation with other water agencies. has continued on this path for many years because of the forces listed above. I recommend we sell water at the real market value of water and use the tax revenues to increase the storage, reliability and infrastructure issues now and into the long term well being of the future.