On the campaign trail, it’s easy for candidates to talk about what they will do, especially in the absence of real world constraints. “I have a bold new plan for solving homelessness that would create X number of tiny homes!” That’s easy to say, but how do you do it? Where would you get the money? And how do you plan to line up the votes of your fellow board members?
That is why I want you, the voters, any time you hear me announce good intentions, to ask me for 1) A realistic way of accomplishing what I say I intend to do and 2) An example of something similar that I’ve accomplished in the past.
Here's an example to start with.
One of my main tenets on the campaign trail is taming the bureaucracy so that we can get things done more quickly. Time is money and climate change is here. The pace at which we work must reflect the urgency of today. But how do you actually do that, in particular as a public agency director, as a Boardmember of Valley Water?
As I noted on my website, I’ve worked with just about every single public agency in Santa Clara County, all the cities, Valley Transportation Authority, Midpeninsula Open Space Authority, Santa Clara County Open Space Authority, El Camino Hospital District, Santa Clara County and more. Each has its own bureaucratic processes that are frustrating and mindnumbing. Understanding how to navigate these processes, how public agencies work, is important knowledge and experience for a Water District Director to have.
In the case of the Water District, I experienced the organization’s bureaucracy firsthand as a contracting agency. For several years, my organization entered into relatively simple contracts where we partnered with the District on creek clean-ups, water education programs, and more specifically, drought education. Every year, the execution and administration of those contracts was more complicated and time consuming than it should have been. This sucked up Water District staff time/resources and drove my staff nuts. It’s soul sucking to spend time on paperwork when all you want to do is go out and deliver fun programs to teach people about water.
What did we do? First, let me say that this experience with the Water District is not unique. Every public agency has a process that makes you want to poke your eyes out. It is also important to understand that there are good reasons for that. Public agencies safeguard our money, our tax dollars. And because of that, every step of the process is crafted with trasparency and accountability in mind. This attempt to ensure that our tax dollars are spent well and that every penny can be accounted for can result in overly burdensome processes. That said, in this case, when we and other grantees of the District expressed frustration with the process, our feedback was met with a willingness to reflect on the contracting and program administration to make the whole system work better.
Fast forward to today, and the team overseeing that program brought forward a proposal that was approved by the Board on May 23rd. If you read the staff report here, you’ll see that the team interviewed contracting agencies and peer organizations to understand painpoints and best practices. They then took that feedback and revamped the program in order to operate more efficiently.
This is an example of a small piece of a large organization being fixed. It happened because of a staff culture that embraces feedback, a staff that genuinely wants the program to work well, and because people like me have developed constructive working relationships with the team at the Water District so that, when we express frustration and suggest the need for improvement, staff welcomes the feedback and works on process improvements.
My direct experience working with the District to improve a small corner of the organization’s vast operations is one example of how I plan to translate a campaign promise into reality. Time is money, and as a boardmember, I plan to continue to guide the District to welcome a spirit of reflection and constant improvement so that they can be good stewards of our tax dollars while being responsive to the urgency of climate change.
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