DEL REY OAKS — With the future of the much-debated Pure Water Monterey expansion proposal hanging on a single vote, the hotly contested Del Rey Oaks City Council race has taken on regional significance.
If Mayor Alison Kerr, who easily won re-election for a second two-year term over incumbent councilwoman Pat Lintell in the Nov. 3 election, had won a council majority in the race for two open seats on the five-member council, she was expected to move to replace Councilman John Gaglioti on the Monterey One Water board to shake loose the stalled Pure Water Monterey expansion project at that agency.
As of Friday afternoon, Kerr’s preferred slate of council candidates had been only partly successful, with Kim Shirley in position to win a seat but Gary Kreeger trailing in third place, with city planning commissioner Scott Donaldson in the overall lead for a council seat.
According to county elections semi-final results released Wednesday, Donaldson had 486 votes, followed by Shirley with 480 votes and Kreeger with 443 votes. Incumbent vice mayor Kristin Clark was well behind with 329 votes, and incumbent councilwoman Louise Goetzell didn’t run for re-election.
A county elections report with updated results was expected to be released later Friday after The Herald’s deadline.
Deputy City Clerk Karen Minami said Kerr, Donaldson and Shirley will be sworn in on Dec. 15, though she said the election is not over yet. Kerr said board appointments will be on that meeting agenda.
Kerr, who previously tried to replace Gaglioti on the Monterey One Water board, called Donaldson a “potential swing vote” and noted that he has expressed support for the Pure Water Monterey expansion proposal while acknowledging she wasn’t sure where he stood on a variety of issues.
Earlier this year, a split Monterey One Water board narrowly denied certification of the Pure Water Monterey expansion proposal’s supplemental environmental impact report by an 11-10 weighted vote. Gaglioti joined the slimmest of majorities. That prompted agency staff to halt all work on the expansion, which is being touted as a replacement for California American Water’s proposed desalination project.
Since then, the Marina Coast Water District has added a single weighted vote on the Monterey One Water board, leaving it tied 11-11 on certification of the expansion project SEIR since the water district representative Tom Moore has been a leading proponent of certification and proceeding with the Pure Water Monterey expansion, and the water district has a long history of opposing Cal Am’s desal project.
With no other major changes expected in the Monterey One Water board’s representation, Del Rey Oaks’ representative could be in position to cast a deciding vote to certify the expansion SEIR and move forward with the project or to limbo.
Salinas City Councilwoman Gloria De La Rosa, who served as the city’s representative on the Monterey One Water, did not run for re-election, but her replacement is not expected to change De La Rosa’s vote against certification of the expansion SEIR.
Kerr noted the council had only established a majority approval for board and commission appointments after she was elected mayor in 2018. She pointed out that Del Rey Oaks voters delivered the highest percentage of approval for the public water ownership initiative Measure J. She also argued the expansion proposal is linked to that issue.
Gaglioti declined to predict whether the council would re-appoint him to the Monterey One Water board, but said he stands by his decision not to certify the expansion SEIR. He argued the document was “fatally flawed” because it should have been analyzed as a “standalone” project rather than an expansion of the current Pure Water Monterey project. It should have included a more realistic cumulative impacts analysis he said, that didn’t assume the expansion would stop operating if and when Cal Am’s desal project is operational. He said the document also made faulty assumptions on source water, demand, and drought resiliency and failed to fully consider the impact on the Seaside basin.
Public Water Now backed Kerr, Shirley and Kreeger in the hopes of dislodging Gaglioti from the Monterey One Water board, alleging Gaglioti was acting on behalf of Cal Am’s interests. Gaglioti denied that while complaining about the activist organization’s tactics and influence.
Meanwhile, Monterey Peninsula Water Management District officials have been considering in recent months a proposal to attempt to take over lead agency status from Monterey One Water on the Pure Water Monterey expansion SEIR, which it helped pay for. Water management district officials have expressed deep disappointment in the Monterey One Water board’s decision not to certify the SEIR and even contemplated suing over the issue.
The water management district board will have a distinctly different membership after the election with Public Water Now-backed candidates Amy Anderson and Karen Paull winning seats and Molly Evans about to be replaced after submitting her resignation. Evans recently revised her earlier board resignation to clarify that she would accept her uncontested re-election to another term on the board and be sworn in before resigning to take a job in New York.
Monterey One Water General Manager Paul Sciuto said it would cost about $1.8 million to complete the expansion proposal’s design and permitting if the SEIR is eventually certified, but the agency has not yet identified that level of funding. Sciuto said the agency could seek a cost-sharing arrangement with the water management district to cover those costs, similar to the arrangement used for the expansion SEIR.
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Election 2020: Pure Water Monterey expansion hangs in balance - Monterey Herald
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