New law reshaped San Joaquin River conservancy board. Why hasn’t that happened?
When will Gov. Gavin Newsom stop ignoring state law regarding oversight of the San Joaquin River Parkway?
An entire year of bureaucratic indifference by his administration is long enough.
Wednesday morning in Madera, the San Joaquin River Conservancy Board meets for the final time in 2022. One of the two action items on the agenda is to elect a new board chair and vice chair for the next 12 months.
Except the body making that decision isn’t constituted in accordance with current state law. Not after Newsom himself in September 2021 signed Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula’s AB 559, a bill designed to bring more diverse community representation to the state agency’s governing board.
The law was supposed to go into effect Jan. 1. Twelve months later, the board remains the same. Two new gubernatorial-appointed seats, one for a tribal member and one for a youth member (between the ages of 18 and 26) of a conservation or environmental organization, have yet to be filled. Even worse, it doesn’t appear as if anyone is looking.
I say that because when you click through to the appointments page of the California governor’s official website and look up the San Joaquin River Conservancy in the appointments index, the board’s composition has yet to be updated with respect to AB 559. Even though the index is dated October 2022.
Furthermore, when you scan through the current list of vacancies among the state’s many boards and commissions and find the heading for San Joaquin River Conservancy, the tribal and youth seats aren’t even there.
In fact, the only listing is one for a Madera County citizen representative, a seat that has been vacant since 2016. (AB 559 also contains language designed to prevent such vacancies from lingering more than a year.)
I emailed Newsom’s office to ask why Arambula’s bill is taking so long to implement. The answer I got back, from a member of his communications staff, is they’re “in the process” of updating the appointments page to reflect the new board.
A glacial-paced process, by all indications.
An Arambula staff member told me the Fresno assemblyman is “frustrated” the governor hasn’t moved faster on filling the Native American and youth seats despite interest in both positions and that multiple names have been submitted to Newsom’s office.
River parkway finally has O&M funds
Why does this matter? Because for the first time in its history, the San Joaquin River Conservancy finally has the funding to properly manage the properties it has spent the last three decades acquiring between Friant Dam and Highway 99.
Arambula also deserves most of the credit for that. During the 2021-22 budget cycle, the Fresno Democrat secured a $15 million earmark for the San Joaquin River Parkway’s maintenance and operations.
How to effectively spend that money — before it expires in 2024 — has taken up most of the board’s attention over the last 18 months. That discussion will carry over into 2023.
It sure would be nice to have the new board members, as well as a citizen representative from Madera, seated for those important votes. If nothing else than to add fresh community voices to a body largely made up of state bureaucrats and local elected officials.
However, that’s evidently not a priority of the governor’s office.
While the board’s constitution hasn’t changed, a few aspects of AB 559 were implemented after the bill became law. For the first time, the positions of chair and vice chair were open to all members in an annual vote, rather than being rotated among a Fresno city councilmember and supervisors from Fresno and Madera counties.
Bryn Forhan, the Fresno citizen representative, has served as board chair since January and is eligible for another 12 months in office. However, members will assuredly elect a new vice chair as Madera County Supervisor Brett Frazier transitions into his new office of county assessor.
‘I am done’ with half measures
Besides the board leadership votes, the only other action item on Wednesday’s agenda is resolution expressing appreciation for Frazier’s eight years of service.
Reading this made me chuckle, if only because of what took place during the November meeting after a proposed $4 million contract with the Madera County sheriff’s office to provide security services on their side of the river (a deal Frazier worked on for months) got voted down.
Let’s just say the man was somewhat displeased.
“We need to step up and become a professional organization that delivers what the people desire,” Frazier said. “I am done with doing things halfway.”
None of this means there aren’t positive developments taking place along the 22-mile riparian and recreation corridor. There are.
Thanks to the new O&M money, the conservancy is in the process of bolstering its ranks with much-needed staff dedicated to recreation and maintenance. Heavily visited properties including Sycamore Island Park that used to be open on a limited basis will be open daily starting in mid-January. Others, including Ball Ranch, will get portable toilets and trash service.
The other big step we should (cross fingers) finally see in 2023 is a formal groundbreaking at River West Fresno. Wednesday’s agenda also includes an update on that long-awaited project.
During monthly board meetings, you get every sense individual board members are feeling the pressure to fulfill the conservancy’s mission.
It’s a pity that urgency isn’t shared by the governor’s office.
