MLIRD stakeholders bring concerns to hearing

MOSES LAKE - Stakeholders within the Moses Lake Irrigation and Rehabilitation District (MLIRD) had the floor during a public hearing in Moses Lake.

Nearly 60 people attended Monday night's meeting in the Civic Center auditorium, with about 18 testifying on various aspects of the MLIRD in front of facilitator Mike Schwisow, Sen. Janéa Holmquist Newbry and Rep. Judy Warnick.

The two 13th District legislators arranged the hearing to take the community's pulse on issues raised last legislative session, when an MLIRD reform bill proposed changing voting methods and the process to increase district assessments.

The bill did not advance to a final vote but, if passed, voting rules would have changed to one vote per landowner regardless of the number of parcels held. The bill would also have had MLIRD elections be conducted by mail and required approval by district stakeholders for all property tax increases.

Schwisow, a former deputy director at the Washington Department of Agriculture, has expertise on water and irrigation-district issues and represents the Columbia Basin Development League and the state's irrigation districts - including the MLIRD.

"What I hope to be able to do through the input of these two meetings is develop a recommendation that I can provide to the legislators on what my view is, given the experiences I've had working with local governments," he said at the outset of the meeting. "Then we can move forward and have an outcome that the community supports for stewardship of this wonderful natural resource that we have here."

MLIRD board director Mick Hansen started the testimony by reiterating support for the MLIRD bill and thanking the legislators for their assistance.

Board member Ron Covey followed by thanking lawmakers for slowing passage of the bill so its contents could be discussed in Moses Lake.

"We needed to bring this home before the ratepayers and have these decisions made here locally, not by legislators in Olympia," he said.

Public testimony hit on several items - from how assessments should be divvied up to whether lake dredging should continue.

But perhaps the most revisited issue of the night was voting, and whether the current system should be changed to give each ratepayer one vote, regardless of the number of parcels owned.

Some said they should be compensated with more votes for paying more in taxes, while others equated the current voting arrangement to an aristocracy or a feudal system. Many people on both sides said the issue is one of fairness.

"My personal opinion is, the people paying the bill should have a larger vote than the people not paying the bill," said Jeff Foster.

"I like to believe if I had the money I could buy shares in a company," Karen Stall said. "If I have 100 shares in that company, I want a vote per share. I don't want the person with one share to vote the way that company is going to move or who's going to be a director in that company."

"I have a list of top 20 parcel holders in the district who have nearly 50 percent of the votes, and half of them don't live in this town," countered Richard Hansen. "To me that is a totally bogus situation."

"I don't know of any other jurisdiction anywhere in the whole country that a man gets more than one vote," said Jon Smith. "The guy with all the money has the ability to buy up the power to make the rules to run it the way he wants. That's un-American."

But Schwisow said while he appreciates the idea of "one man, one vote" as an American custom, all traditional irrigation districts have weighted voting.

"There is a relationship there between the number of acres and the infrastructure that services those acres, and that's why there's a weighted voting system," he said.

Many people who testified expressed support for expanding the current MLIRD board from three to five people, including board members Rich Archer and Covey.

"Most irrigation districts in the state currently have a five-member board. Few have three and one even has seven," said Covey. "There's a lot of work to be done and it could certainly use two additional board members."

MLIRD stakeholder Clay Crook agreed.

"Right now we have two (members) who always vote together, so the third is basically out," he said. "Two against one, as any child knows, is not democracy."

Holmquist Newbry clarified the issue of increasing board members is within the statutory authority of the MLIRD, which would simply need to hold a vote of ratepayers to make it happen.

Several people also supported the idea of expanding the district itself in order to bring more money to the cleanup of the lake, with more than a few saying residents who utilize the lake should help pay for its maintenance.

"If the lake truly is the jewel of this city and what brings people into this city, shouldn't everybody that benefits of it being the jewel of the city participate in paying to maintain and improve it?" Smith said, echoing the sentiments of a number of people. "Everybody should pay their fair share."

Cleanup of the lake was discussed by a number of people, primarily concerns about the increase of sediment over the past several years. Some, including Mike Smith, suggested the Bureau of Reclamation should have to pay into the cleanup efforts.

"They are flooding the lake and bringing sediment down from farms with all the nutrients," he said. "Should they not be helping pay for all this sediment removal?"

"One thing I have learned is that taxes and water are the most critical, controversial issues ever," Warnick said at the conclusion of the night's testimony. "We have both issues in this, and so any way that we as legislators can help this community get through this process, we will."

The next public hearing will solicit possible solutions and will be held July 16 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Moses Lake Civic Center Auditorium, 401 S Balsam Street.