California government meeting stopped by pornography, racism? Democracy lost | Opinion
A state meeting on California’s most controversial water project, attended via Zoom on Monday by dozens of officials and experts, was hijacked by a rogue broadcast of sexual images and audio of racist comments against Blacks and Jews.
It was not funny.
The State Water Resources Control Board, unable to stop its own webcast, lost control of the meeting. It was canceled. And key testimony is not scheduled to resume for at least six weeks.
As the state capital, Sacramento has seen more than its share of political theater over the years. In 2019, a menstrual cup containing human blood was thrown from the state Senate gallery, temporarily interrupting proceedings. Activists opposed to vaccinations for children took civil disobedience to new extremes.
But what happened Monday in a complicated regulatory proceeding is something disturbingly new and different. Our disrespect for government institutions, which find themselves increasingly under attack from every corner of society imaginable, is reaching new low levels, testing our democracy.
A racist porno?
How a porno stopped a water hearing
At issue Monday was nothing less than the future of California’s statewide water delivery system at its geographic heart, the so-called Delta Tunnel.
Supported in one form or another by the last three governors, the Delta Conveyance Project calls for reconfiguring how the State Water Project provides water to Kern County, Silicon Valley, Southern California and others. Currently, the project draws its water from the southern Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and can draw endangered fish towards its pumps, particularly when pulling at high rates. This project calls for diverting some of the supply miles upstream from two new screened intakes on the Sacramento River near the small community of Hood and transporting the water via a single tunnel to the California Aqueduct at the existing Bethany Reservoir.
Among its many required permits, this project requires approval by the water board, with new regulations, to divert from these two new diversion locations. With such a significant change in the plumbing of the system, this project has drawn vehement opposition from environmental groups and concerns from water right holders throughout the Sierra watershed that they may potentially be harmed by its operations.
In full disclosure, this incident hits close to home. I used to work to advance this project and its predecessor for 16 years at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California before returning to The Bee in 2023. And I am married to the operator of the State Water Project, director Karla Nemeth of the California Department of Water Resources. The porno interrupted scheduled testimony by her and others Monday morning.
A disruption that serves nobody’s interest
For the public water agencies that would pay for this project, every day of delay costs an estimated one million additional ratepayer dollars (if it is built). “We strongly denounce these vulgar, hate-filled attempts to disrupt that process,” said a statement by the State Water Contractors, which represents these agencies.
Yet the greatest logistical hardship likely falls to the activist community that is largely not paid to engage in this months-long proceeding. Groups like Restore the Delta are waging grassroots campaigns that require everyday Californians to take time off from work to participate in this democratic process. Interruptions like this are not helpful to constructive activism.
Who knows whether the hijacker of this meeting was simply a troll or an actual opponent who took things way too far. But this harmed everybody.
The board has canceled Delta meetings scheduled for March 25 and next Tuesday, according to spokesperson Ailene Voisin. And a hearing officer has stated in an email that the key policy testimony of the water department and stakeholders won’t happen until mid-May at the earliest. This is an unprecedented setback in a regulatory proceeding, and a major agency losing complete control of its own meeting system.
“The board regrets the incident and strongly condemns racism and hate speech,” reads its statement.
But that is not nearly enough.
The water board, its integrity blatantly challenged, must follow the virtual trail and make every attempt to identify who did this. At this point, the board doesn’t even know whether to release a link to its own Monday meeting, it was so bad.
Nobody in California can point to a diminished rule of law in Washington without admitting that it’s getting just as bad here in Sacramento.
This story was originally published March 27, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "California government meeting stopped by pornography, racism? Democracy lost | Opinion."