John Kingsbury, Executive Director of Mountain Counties Water Resources Association (MCWRA), will speak at our Chapter Dinner Meeting on November 20th.

The MCWRA advocates for the water interests of its members in all or a portion of 15 of the 58 California counties from the southern tip of Lassen County down to Fresno. John has been the Executive Director since March, 2011.

John has been in the water business for the past 25 years. Throughout his career, he has worked with statewide and regional organizations that monitor and influence regulatory and legislative matters of critical interest to the water purveyors and participated on various regional and statewide committees.

Prior to MCWRA, John worked for 10 1/2 years at the Placer County Water Agency located in Placer County as the Director of Customer Services and was responsible for planning, organizing and directing the 29 member Water System’s Customer Services Department. Prior to working at Placer County Water Agency, John worked in El Dorado County for 12 1/2 years at the El Dorado Irrigation District as the Customer Services Manager responsible for planning, organizing and directing the Water System’s Customer Services Department.

Since 1979, John has lived in the Sierra Nevada Foothill community of Placerville, which is located in El Dorado County, 40 miles northeast of Sacramento.

John will review current water issues relevant to our area and the State as a whole including:

• Water Bond status and prospects for implementation
• Projects likely to come out of the current or revised Water Bond
• State of the Mountain Counties Water Agencies – region-wide issues and needs.
• Bay Delta Water issues and how the current plan may affect local water rights and uses

Don’t miss this opportunity to review current issues that are relevant and important to us and to our clients.

If you didn’t attend our first lunch meeting/golfing event at Ancil Hoffman last month, you missed a great one! Everyone had a great time. The turnout was about the same as recent meetings, but we did have new faces and a different mix of attendees. The casual buffet lunch with tri tip was a hit too. I have to say that the long hiatus since I played golf last did not help my game any. I think I have firmly cemented my position as the worst golfer among Chapter Presidents of the last 6 years. In addition to a great presentation by Jerry Way, he provided me free advice – “Play more.” I will try to take Jerry’s advice and be ready for spring, when we hope to have another lunch/golfing meeting!

“…So-So Legislative Session for Business” was the headline of a recent article in the Sacramento Business Journal recapping the end of the legislative session. Of the 805 bill that were passed into law, many affect our industry’s business climate, both positively and negatively. And many of the bills signed into law are mixed, with both positive and negative aspects. One of note is AB 401, which authorizes state and local agencies to use design-build (DB) for transportation projects, but contains language specifying that Caltrans perform the construction inspection. I have spoken to those in our industry that support this bill because more DB projects are authorized (previous DB authority expires at the end of 2013). A recent email I received on behalf of Self Help Counties touts the passage of AB 401. On the other hand, a large contractor that I spoke with felt very pessimistic about the DB environment in CA as a result of AB 401 and planned to look elsewhere for opportunities. ACEC-CA and others opposed the bill because the construction inspection provision violates Prop 35 (which gives state and local public agencies the authority to use either public or private sector design services and that local agencies have that authority over local and regional projects).

ACEC-CA supported SB 743. Although primarily designed to streamline CEQA review of the proposed $450 million Kings arena, SB 743 provides some CEQA streamlining or other CEQA reform benefits to selected categories of projects. Projects benefiting from SB 743 include those in transit priority areas, urban infill projects, and environmental leadership development projects. Although a disappointment from the perspective of overhauling CEQA, ACEC-CA supported the bill despite the limited scope of CEQA reform.

I spoke with someone from a local transportation agency about the positive and negative aspects of AB 401. They felt that in California’s position, one has to be thankful for small gains. I suppose this is true, but to do my part to effect greater change, I have promised myself to be more politically aware, politically engaged, and politically active in the coming year. I hope you will too.