Terry Mahurin is the best candidate to address Santa Clara
Valley Water District’s budget excesses.
Two years ago, Terry Mahurin attended a water district meeting. A stranger, Bob Cerruti, made a presentation on the history of water rate increases. Mahurin thought Cerruti was probably full of baloney, but he stayed after the meeting to talk to him and look at his data.

What he found intrigued him. Mahurin began to do a little research of his own. He dug a little deeper, and a little deeper. He read the budget, comprehensive annual reports, minutes, plans … He analyzed the tremendous mass of data.

Now, quietly, dryly, the retired engineer can display chart after chart, each illustrating an aspect of water district budgeting and operations. Water rates have increased five times in the last five years; nine more consecutive rate increases are planned. Water usage has remained fairly steady over that time frame. Inflation over the last five years was 19 percent, yet South County water rates rose by 87 percent. Since 1977, the population of Santa Clara County rose by 50 percent; the number of water district employees rose exponentially by 300 percent …

The picture that emerges is one of a bloated government agency that employs too many people and charges increasingly high rates to deliver the same product. And which mismanages its responsibilities: rather than paying off a $227 million debt, the district has frittered millions of dollars away on programs, public relations and the district office. As a result, our debt increased by $80 million.

Mahurin wants to freeze the district’s budget and water rates, refinance its debt and place a reasonable limit on its activities. Mahurin is on a reform mission.

Terry Mahurin earns our endorsement for water district for several reasons. He has been a consistent and dedicated observer of the water district for two years.

He has acquired a vast body of detailed knowledge. Even as an outsider with no power, he has asked the tough questions and swayed the district’s actions. He will not forget the points about the district raised in a very critical Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury report. He is fully prepared to identify the waste in this bloated organization and work toward efficiency.

All too often, boards, councils and advisory committees consist of nice people who want to do something for the community. All too often, the government agency that the board is supposed to be directing will snow the board with a mass of data to the point where the nice people serving on the board figure that the bureaucrats know best. Then the board rubberstamps whatever the agency wants.

Mahurin may be outvoted routinely, but he is smart enough to do his homework, dedicated enough to stay the course and committed to telling the public what he thinks. And it just might happen that he will sway the other members of the board into exercising fiduciary responsibility over the agency they are charged to control.

Terry Mahurin for South County’s seat on the water district board.

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