Water agency’s Otis Wollan points to
experience, stability in his re-election bid
The longest-serving member of the Placer County Water Agency Board, Colfax resident Otis Wollan is seeking another four-year term, citing his experience, current board stability and enthusiasm for work to be done in the future. Wollan, 60, is being challenged by Applegate resident Ben Mavy in the Nov. 4 election. Wollan has been a board member since 1987. “This has been a real positive time of stability for the agency,” Wollan said. “It’s really gotten things in order on the infrastructure issue by putting $23 million into water supply reliability over the last year or two.” In the end, water supply and water safety are the key things that the agency is and will be concerned with, he said. Energy will also play a large role in the future of the water agency, with the federal relicensing of the project and the turnover of hydroelectric sales from Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to a joint powers authority consisting of Placer County and PCWA in five years. While his opponent wants local governments to consider dedicating the funding to infrastructure maintenance that includes sewer-related issues and not be placed in the general revenue stream, Wollan said that his board has already established that only water and power infrastructure expenditures will be made with profits. “We really have a narrow slice of what we can spend the money on,” he said. One of the areas Wollan said he wants to explore more fully is financing a bio-fuels power-generation project that would not only use fire fuels in the wooded 5th District he serves but also provide better water quality by preventing erosion and other damage that come from catastrophic wildfires. Wollan described the threat of wildfires as Placer County’s “potential Katrina.” Stability with the agency is important for voters to consider, Wollan said. Wollan, a Colfax resident since 1979 and a resident of the area since the early 1970s, has worked the past 20 years in mediation and dispute resolution. He’s also managed non-profits and for-profits, including the American River Watershed Group. He’s served as chairman of the water agency board twice and is currently vice-chairman. Wollan said the agency has grown steadily from one that was just more than a decade old when he joined. “It has matured and we’ve got it to solid status,” he said. “There is virtually no debt and we were able to handle the growth spurt.” The agency has also taken sometimes unpopular but necessary steps like raising rates to pay for infrastructure maintenance and charging developers rates for connections that reflected current costs, he said. “Basically, we told the development community that they have to pay for the hookups themselves,” he said. Wollan said the agency is now in a position to move forward in a predictable and reliable manner. “This is a time when a lot of hard work is coming to fruition,” he said. “And this is a wonderful time for me to continue to be of service to my community.” The Journal’s Gus Thomson can be reached at gust@goldcountrymedia.com.
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Yes sir, the board predictably and reliably raise rates every year, gives very generous packages to employees and never guarantees delivery of irrigation water although the user must "guarantee" payment.
Out.
Wollan is by far the very best choice for the PCWA Board.
We Placer County residents have a wonderfully unique agency that he has helped navigate through very tough times, with more on the horizon with draught, fires, infrastructure improvements/repairs, and FERC relicensing challenges. Other water agencies have had tumultuous times by comparison. PCWA is recognized as one of the most visionary, best-run water agencies in the nation. Otis Wollan, with his experience, supreme intelligence, and total understanding of the big water picture, has contributed significantly to that great reputation. Wollan's expertise will be needed in the coming years. Vote for Otis Wollan.
Many Meadow Vista residents will remember that I spent almost 4 years with the help of an amazing coalition of neighbors, teachers, local clergy, MAC members, firefighters, business owners, local water executives and other fine citizens trying to bring water into the Applegate area via MHAAA. This failed through no lack of trying but I never really got chance to thank all of them before moving to Arizona. It failed because of a total lack of political will on the part of PCWA which runs in my view largely on its own steam. The only supervision, supposedly that exerted by its Board members, is totally ineffective.
For those wondering how many PCWA meeting I might have attended by the way, the answer is many, including being the ONLY member of the public at an almost full day session of the PCWA Strategy Session and some of the early meetings of the Middle Fork JPA - before it was even properly constituted. I suspect I’m probably the ONLY person that also has a 3 hour CD recording of that meeting where the written transcript shows Wollan congratulating me on having figured out PCWA’s financials. I quote:
BEGIN QUOTE:
“1.41.45 – Otis Wollan – PCWA Director
Bless John Sellers. The guy in Meadow Vista whose well ran dry. And he organized the people in Applegate and they’re trying to figure out how to get Weimar Water through Midway Heights to do some kind of a deal down there and he has identified that pot of money and has figured out that it’s only logical that we immediately leverage our future revenues and put the pipeline in for Applegate. There are people who have figured this out already. He’s an astute retired business guy - he’s really smart. And he came up with some smart questions that I was impressed with – a list of questions he asked Dave [Brenninger] and Joe [Parker] - about how this you know what are our fiscal policies and all kinds of good stuff. It was really an impressive list. He put two and two together and he’s just a guy from Appplegate [laughter]. You know so – it’s honest.”
END QUOTE
This happened because some of MHAA’s almost 100 paid up members will also remember that, as a seasoned Wall Street energy and project finance investment banker of 30 years, I had no trouble penetrating the mirrors of PCWA’s financial reporting. At that time three years ago their financial plight was quite strained. After a recent detailed review of their finances today, with the almost total disappearance since then of one time connection charges, it is in my view even more serious.
This is compounded by their mad dash to secure the license for the Middle Fork from PG&E. The current leadership of PCWA seeks, without a partner, to become a power company, a highly risky business, and in effect repeat the disastrous folly of the Bear Sterns supported lawsuit between PCWA and PG&E 25 years ago. Their financial position is such now that even I, normally viewed as somewhat creative financially, cannot imagine a means for them to extricate themselves from this situation.
Based on my financial projections based on PCWA’s own recent debt proformas for the 2008 COIP offering, I believe these prove PCWA will not be able to accept any reasonable offer to renegotiate the 2013 PG&E water contract – even if they wanted to. This is because of restrictive debt covenants in these and earlier recent debt offerings which now involve Zone3/ District 5 water revenues being pledged to bondholders as well.
Electors only hope is to effect change at the Board level. The present incumbent, Otis Wollan, is gloriously described in the company’s debt prospectuses as the most senior Board member - being there for 20 years. Yet clearly from his recent public statements about PCWA not having increased its debt, he never read P62 of PCWA’s 2007 Annual Report.
“There is virtually no debt” – Source - Otis Wollan - The Auburn Journal September 14th
P 62 shows water debt almost tripling from $34 million in 1998 to $85 million in 2007. That’s not including Middle Fork Debt borrowed from the schools etc via the JPA which amounts to probably another $25 million but does not even show up AT ALL - at least as debt!
The best way to do this is to get to know Ben Mavy whose ethics and community spirit will not disappoint
Contact details:
595 Robin Drive, Prescott, Arizona 86305
Tel: 928-277-1262
Fax: 928-277-1308
Cell: 928-310- 8220
Email: jasellers@cableone.net
Web site: www.jsellers.co.uk