Ronald Wastewater Board is Set, After Lind and Matthews are Added

The Ronald Wastewater District Board now has five members, including two newly added this summer, Arne Lind and Richard Matthews.

The Board wanted to expand and add members for several reasons, Board President Brian Carroll said.

Under state law, special purpose districts with over 10,000 customers may be governed by a board of up to five commissioners.  Ronald Wastewater District has over 16,000 customers.   In May of 2012, the Board of Commissioners of Ronald Wastewater District voted 2-1, with commissioners Brian Carroll and Arthur Wadekamper voting in favor and Bob Ransom voting against, to expand the number of commissioners from three to five.  Carroll and Wadekamper  believed that expanding the Board would help the District outreach to and communicate with its rate payers, as well as attend industry, regional utility and community meetings.The Shoreline Fire District has five board members and the School Board has five members and now so does Ronald Wastewater District.

 “There’s a reason to go to five,” Carroll said. “A majority of the commissioners felt compelled to go that way.”

The City Council however doesn’t see it that way and voiced its displeasure with the move in a letter from Mayor Keith McGlashan to the Ronald Board on May 25. The city believes Ronald is trying to wriggle free from a 2002 agreement to have the city absorb Ronald and have Ronald employees become city employees.

At the Wednesday, July 25, 2012 meeting, the Board of Commissioners voted to appoint Arnold H. Lind to one of the new commissioner positions.  The appointment vote was two in favor with one abstention. Lind previously served as a District commissioner for 13 years, losing a close election in 2011 to current Commissioner Robert Ransom.  Lind will serve until he is up for election in 2015.

Attorney Richard P. Matthews, of  Highland Terrace, was appointed earlier this month and will be up for election in 2013.

Four neighborhoods are represented on the Board: Innis Arden (Carroll), Richmond Beach (Lind, Wadekamper), Highland Terrace (Matthews), and Meridian Park (Ransom). General manager Michael Derrick lives in Ridgecrest.

“We did not plot out the neighborhoods they represented, that’s something Bob tried,” Carroll said. “So we didn’t ask that. Nor did he.”

The District notified all residential customers of the opportunity to serve and the Board received 21 applications for the new commissioner positions:  four women and 17 men. 

People “from all walks of life,” turned in resumes, according to Carroll.

“We read through all of them and applied a scoring system,” he said. “We each got to rank order our top five.”

Five people were interviewed, including two people from Shoreline’s eastside, an attorney and Patty Hale, a Ridgecrest neighborhood activist.

“We found two candidates that are quite knowledgeable about Shoreline wastewater district and corporate governance,” Carroll said, referring to Ronald as a municipal corporation.

That turned out to be Lind and Matthews.

Lind, “could hit the ground running,” and Matthews had served on the “charter commission, and was involved in Kruckeberg Gardens and Richmond Little League.”

Matthews, had, “the second-best knowledge of the district,” Carroll said.

“We’re here to run a smooth and effective government and treat our employees well,” he said.

Carroll called sewer districts, “highly capital intensive and need to be run by organizations that have knowledge,” of their operations.

As to the 15-year agreement made in 2002 with the city, Carroll said, “It’s required by statute that there be a vote of the people. That’s one of our chief missions and values.”