Sanitary District Calls Off Boycott; Small Sewage Spill in Fairfax

At its meeting on April 20, the Ross Valley Sanitary District (RVSD) voted not to continue a boycott of Central Marin Sanitation Agency (CMSA) meetings.

CMSA is a joint powers agency made up of RVSD, Sanitary District #2 (Corte Madera), and the San Rafael Sanitation District, which treats the wastewater from the three agencies. RVSD is a wastewater collection agency that serves all the Ross Valley, Larkspur and San Quentin.

RVSD's two representatives to CMSA -- Pat Guasco and Marcia Johnson -- .

"This comes after years of frustration," said Johnson, who went on to argue that the RVSD representatives are consistently ignored, excluded from meetings, that their opinions are taken out of the public record of the meeting, and that they are even unable to get items put on the agenda.

Johnson also stated that she had been physically and verbally threatened.

According to the Marin Independent Journal, that claim was in reference to Mayor Al Boro (San Rafael's representative to CMSA) grabbing her arm and threatening her. 

The IJ stated:

During a Sept. 18, 2009, Ross Valley Sanitary District board meeting, Johnson entered into the record an email she sent to Larkspur Deputy City Manager Robert Sinnott, then chairman of the Central Marin Sanitation Agency board. In the email, Johnson asserted that Boro "physically grabbed my arm and hurt me during the January 8, 2008 CMSA Board meeting."

The article also quoted Boro vehemently denying the claim.

The boycotting plan was nixed, however, by the other members of the RVSD Board.

Board members Pam Meigs, Frank Eggers and Peter Sullivan said they couldn't support a boycott of meetings -- no matter how frustrated they were by the situation.

Guasco, in the end, also voted against continuing the boycott, saying he believed it had made a statement and that he took to heart concerns expressed by residents about not attending the meetings the representatives are required to attend. 

"You don't get to leave the sandbox of democracy," said Fairfax Council Member David Weinsoff to the board.

Chief among those concerns expressed in the letter was that CMSA comply with Prop. 218 - a rate-payer protection law that special districts and agencies must follow, but which joint powers agencies are exempt from. The issue of Prop. 218 has come up repeatedly as CMSA's costs have risen. RVSD also voted at that same meeting to .

At that meeting, Egger also asked about a sewage spill that had occurred on Valley Road in Fairfax. He said he had been up to the area to examine a slide a resident reported had been caused by the sanitary district and wanted to know what the district's process would have been in reporting that spill to residents.

The district's attorney, however, told Egger during the meeting that that question was not within the scope of the agenda and couldn't be discussed.

A press release, dated April 20, on the district's website

Since the over , the district has been working on better notification procedures. All town managers and key town personnel are now supposed to be called in the event of a spill. The district is not required to notify residents or town officials of spills; they are required to notify the Regional Water Quality Board and Department of Health. 

A miscommunication following the rainstorms in March, however, led to San Anselmo town officials thinking .

The board has also voted to have liaisons work with each town to communicate with the town councils. However, San Anselmo and Fairfax have both said they would invite representatives to come speak and have not had any such representatives come.