Anything You Ever Wanted to Know About Water and NYWD.

When I campaigned I made a promise to be a personally transparent and accountable Public Servant. I intend to keep that promise. As a citizen observing Board meetings, I saw NYWD as lacking (my opinion) transparency and accountability; I had a number of ideas to help bring transparency and accountability to NYWD as a Board member.

I am only one person and getting anything done requires a majority vote by the Board. Even for something as simple as getting items on an agenda: if I want to put something on an agenda for consideration, a majority of the Board has to agree to put that thing on the agenda for the following month. I was optimistic after the election that, with the People having spoken, I could work to forge relationships with NYWD officials and staff. After the Former Director, in his vitriolic, bitter tirade at his last meeting on Nov 30th, 2018 urged the Board to stay strong: stating “You are four and she is one!” and no one stepped in to stop the vitriolic tirade, I was somewhat less optimistic, but still hopeful that I would at least been given a chance.

And thus, I persist – and besides, you never really know right????! You never know until you try!!!! And you haven’t failed – until you stop trying!!!!!

As a pragmatist, I am not going to bang my head against a brick wall, I will instead identify what I CAN do as one person. What I can do, is be transparent with the public about my personal experiences, and seek to provide as much information as I can to the public. Any information I provide in this blog site, is information that is part of the public record, is available to the public, and can be requested by any member of the public.

FYI – when I moved here in 2017, I became an irrigation customer; however, I have never received water.

As a member of the public, I was frustrated by the lack of information and the difficulty in understanding NYWD facilities. Where does our water come from? As an irrigation customer – how does my water get to me? During my campaign – in conversation with many members of the public – I heard the same complaint. In this blog you will find that information here (as much of it as I can learn and pass on): https://she-persisted.life/nywd-irrigation-water/

As a member of the public, I was also frustrated at the inability of the public to engage with the Board or to be heard in meetings – things that are guaranteed by the Brown Act. While the Brown Act was written into law to ensure the rights of the public in retaining their sovereignty over their public agency – what I have found is that many of the NYWD policies have made it difficult-to-impossible for the public to engage an any level, and many policies have also resulted in the abdication of Board oversight responsibilities to the very person who they are supposed to oversee. I have provided a section in this blog that pertains to state laws and the specific policies of the NYWD here so the public can be informed as is their right: https://she-persisted.life/nywd-and-its-policies/

Finally, please remember that all communications between a public official and the public are part of the public record.