Rob Davis, on voiceofsandiego.org, writes about the conflict over water rates between Metropolitan Water District and the San Diego County Water Authority, one of MWD’s member agencies. San Diego, you may recall, is balking at helping to pay for conveying Delta water to Southern California.
It seems that MWD has formed a working group and intentionally left SDCWA out. Says Davis,
A group of 20 water agencies that are members of Metropolitan has been meeting and discussing the County Water Authority’s lawsuit and even hired a former Metropolitan general manager, Ron Gastelum, as a consultant. Their meeting agendas and many emails the authority released blandly refer to the group as the “Member Agency Managers MWD Working Group.”
But in one email the County Water Authority obtained, a public works official for the city of Beverly Hills, an agency participating in the effort, calls the group “The Secret Society.”
“It’s what I briefed you about from the last Secret Society Meeting,” the official, Chris Theisen, says in the email. “Ron Gastelum is the former [Metropolitan] CEO that the Secret Society hired as an advisor.”
Metropolitan has said the meetings aren’t secret. But they’re not open to the public or to the County Water Authority.
Click here for details on this Secret Society. (We’re not kidding: They really call themselves that.)