"Digger"

Despite predictable opposition from organized and well funded groups such as corporate agriculture, golf courses, developers, realtors, and some resorts, it is extremely important to elect someone to the BWD board during this election cycle who has a grasp of the problems facing the valley as well as the independence, vision, and courage to implement the difficult solutions that will be required.  Richard "Dick" Walker is the only one running who qualifies.  He has been faithfully attending, contributing to, and participating in BWD board and sub-committee meetings for more than two years and did yoeman's work on the 2006-07 "annual" update to the BWD Groundwater Management Plan - the first and only one the district has managed to get done since the plan was adopted more than four years ago.  The four other candidates have absolutely nothing to recommend them and much to recommend against them:

Rita Anderson is a real estate broker and has had an on again, off again relation with the BWD for several years - mostly off.  She has both run and applied for appointment to fill vacancies on the board.  Pursuant to those ambitions, she shows up at a (very) few meetings around the time of the election/appointment and then disappears from the water world until the next opening/election.  It appears, therefore, that she is more interested in the job of Director than the work.

Roger Anderson has been on the BWD board for many years.  In addition to being a carpetbagger, he is a member in good standing of the "Gang of 3" and has repeatedly shown himself to be nothing but a speed bump on the road to implementing meaningful groundwater management strategies – or much of anything else for that matter. He should have been voted off, forced off by the District, or had the integrity to resign years ago.

Kathy King is a real estate agent, but otherwise an unknown quantity.  She has not attended a single BWD meeting or Borrego Springs Community Sponsor Group meeting in recent years.  Makes you wonder what prompted her sudden interest in a Directorship and what she would bring to the job; doesn't it?

Steven Smiley is an employee of an agribusiness who consistently resorts to using any means necessary to preserve the farmers’ right to all of the free water they want  He will continue to do so if elected to the BWD board - all the while piously claiming that his goal is to save the aquifer.  In a sense it is; he wants to save it for corporate agriculture to use down to the last drop or force others in the valley to foot the bill to bring water into the valley at horrendous cost.

So there you have it.  Considered from the standpoint of their fitness to be a BWD director, only Dick Walker is deserving of your vote.  If you are concerned about Borrego’s ever more critical groundwater situation, you should vote only for him and no one else to increase the chances that there will be at least one qualified and right-minded individual on the board who will look out for the interests of the community and who has the ability to make a difference.

If the logic of this strategy seems fuzzy, consider the following explanation:

If Dick Walker doesn't win there will be no one but Eleanor Shimeall to represent the interests of the community at large.  It is therefore imperative that he be elected to the board; and, by comparison, it is a matter of no importance who else gets elected because the others are essentially interchangeable parts.  No matter who the other two successful candidates are, it will still be 3 to 2 (or maybe 2.5 to 2.5 if Bob Mendenhall is having a good day) against any effective groundwater management measures.  But that's better than 4 to 1, which it will be if Dick loses.

If you are a registered voter in Borrego, vote for Dick Walker and only Dick Walker, and encourage others to do likewise, to increase his chances of winning a seat on the board and giving us at least a fighting chance at saving our aquifer.

See also:  2004 BWD board election