The FBI's very recent investigation of a state lawmaker has brought attention to an arm of government that is indispensable and nearly invisible. Agencies like the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District operates with no oversight or public scrutiny. Water, the economy and politics are a critical yet the agencies' board elections are often ignored by voters, and little attention is paid to the six-figure salaries, generous pensions and hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts they dole out.
Water Districts even ignore the annual requests by the state controller's office to provide salary and staffing information so it can be available publicly. Such agencies never make headlines even when 10 million dollars was siphoned off through a boondoggle project known as the Lake Elsinore Advance Pumping Storage (LEAPS) This failed “project” cost the EVMWD Stakeholders over 10 million dollars and is now being made up through some of the highest tiered water rates in Riverside County. EVMWD used what is known as “latent powers” to accomplish this fiasco and left us under the threat of high voltage power lines destroying our aesthetic view of the Valley for no reason other than to line their pockets in my opinion.
"They are completely under the radar," said Robert Stern, former president of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles. "Who are these people? Yet, they have lots of power."
