Board Member Defends Record
Editor,
I would like to acknowledge Mike Smith for his letter to the editor of June 23.
I was elected to Tres Pinos Water District in a landslide victory in November 2006. I firmly believe my being elected had everything to do with my platform, and certainly not my dashing good looks. I was duly elected to the political office of the Tres Pinos Water Board for, as Mr. Smith points out in his letter, “purely political reasons.” If the people of Tres Pinos did not agree with my platform, then surely I would not have been elected by such a wide margin.
I would like to respond to Mr. Smith’s accusation that “the water district is knowingly putting its constituents in harm’s way in the event of a fire, particularly its children and the elderly.” Mr. Smith, I live in Tres Pinos with my wife and four children. My father and his wife live here. My aunt lives here. I have many, many friends I have known since I was born who live here. Mr. Smith, I would rather cut off my right arm than put any one of these people in danger, let alone the whole town.
A few years back, the winter floods almost entirely destroyed our sewer system in Tres Pinos. The Tres Pinos Water District is in a moratorium based on engineering experts’ recommendations because of the state-mandated water supply and storage deficiencies. It is going to take huge amounts of money to meet the state’s unfunded mandates, pull Tres Pinos out of the moratorium and essentially build the town a whole new water system. It will take much more money than the hotel developer ever came close to summarily offering. Unfortunately, Tres Pinos’ water problems can’t all be solved overnight just because a developer demands it.
As a Tres Pinos Water District Board director, I have and always will strive to follow the highest ethical standards in conscientiously and economically providing the best possible water and sewer service to the people of Tres Pinos. I hope this clears things up for Mr. Smith, and I wish him good luck with all his future endeavors.
Robert Frusetta
Tres Pinos
Unsafe Area Needs Fence
Editor,
We live on the north side of the field that abuts this court. We are on South Street. We thought this general area was safe when we bought our new home seven years ago. But, we have watched it go downhill. We get all kinds of weird and suspicious transients and gang types walking through here. We have become scared of our own neighborhood now and desperately want to sell and get out of here. That field needs a big, tall cyclone fence with barbed wire around it to keep these people from coming through our neighborhoods. Who should be contacted about putting up a fence?
Alex Garcia
Hollister
