Jeff Pearson of Rancho Murieta Properties addresses the Rancho Murieta Community Services District Board on Oct. 21, referring to his written comments displayed on a monitor across the room.

 

RANCH MURIETA, CA (MPG) – Tim Maybee, Rancho Murieta Community Services District director, expressed frustration at the Oct. 21 board meeting over the district's failure to respond to public written questions, describing the recurring problem as a “sucking, swirly eddy of despair.”

“We’re back in November, we’re back in December, and we're stuck in the sucky, swirly eddy of despair of not answering,” Maybee said.

The discussion arose during the “Correspondence” agenda items after Jeff Pearson of Rancho Murieta Properties read a summary of his Oct. 21 letter challenging statements Director Bill Gere had made on social media about who would pay for additional water supplies needed for future development. (See the separate story in this issue about the use of social media and a second story about other topics discussed.)

Although “Correspondence” is a standing agenda item and submitted letters are included in the board packet, Board President John Merchant and his predecessors have generally acknowledged receiving correspondence without discussing its contents before moving to the next agenda item.

Pearson upended this standard operating procedure on Oct. 21 by submitting a request to comment under “Correspondence.”

Pearson summarized his current letter to the board and said he had submitted questions previously without receiving a response. "I don't want to continue to come back up here and do this," Pearson said.

Maybee questioned why the district had not responded to questions Pearson had previously submitted in writing. “Why in the heck aren't the questions getting answered?” Maybee asked.

District legal counsel Patrick Enright said he does not routinely answer every question submitted to him.

“If the board wants to direct that we give answers, that I give an answer, then I'll do the research and give the answer,” Enright said.

He questioned whether the directors wanted the district to incur his $300-per-hour rate to research every inquiry.

Maybee argued that the district should not have to pay its attorney to answer straightforward questions arising from statements made by an individual director.

Director Tim Maybee criticizes the district's longstanding failure to respond to public written questions, describing the recurring problem as a “sucking, swirly eddy of despair.”

The discussion broadened when Maybee asked whether staff had responded to two other pieces of correspondence in the Oct. 21 board packet. They included a September letter from C.A. Adkins and a letter from Nellie Bloom, which he said was nearly two months old.

Maybee suggested that, at a minimum, the district should acknowledge receipt of written correspondence, even when it does not provide a substantive response.

General Manager Marti Brown, who began work Oct. 19, recommended the board consider adopting a policy establishing how staff should respond to correspondence.

Brown said staff needs clear direction from the board rather than deciding themselves which letters should receive responses.

“I would prefer that the board take explicit action, giving us direction to start responding to things in a factual way that's unemotional and, hopefully, just the facts,” Brown said.

She offered to bring the matter to the board for consideration in November.

Director Randy Jenco said he recalled an earlier board discussion establishing a procedure for responding to questions raised during public comment. Under that approach, he said, directors would not answer questions immediately but would respond after the meeting.

“I think what you're asking for has already been done, and the ball was dropped on these three correspondents when no one responded to them,” Jenco said.

Brown said she would review the earlier meeting minutes.

During former General Manager Mimi Morris's tenure, the district established a section on its website to answer questions raised at board meetings—the posted responses address questions from a 2023 meeting, with no subsequent responses appearing in that section.

Merchant also described his experience with unanswered correspondence. Between 2006 and 2016, he said, he submitted numerous detailed memoranda to the board, primarily concerning water use and planning documents, without receiving a single acknowledgment or formal response.

The board took no formal action on a correspondence-response policy at the Oct. 21 meeting.