Victorville Adds Water District To SCLAA

In a piece of bureaucratic sleight-of-hand by the city of Victorville, the Victorville Water District was this week included as a member entity to the Southern California Logistics Airport Authority.
The Southern California Logistics Airport Authority (SCLAA) was established as a joint powers authority on  February 21, 2001 as comprised of the city of Victorville and the city of Victorville’s redevelopment agency for the purpose of serving as the redevelopment authority devoted to the conversion of the former George Air Force Base into a civilian airport.
Last year, as part of the 2011-12 state budget bill, the California Legislature enacted and Governor Jerry Brown signed AB IX 26, which requires that all municipal redevelopment agencies be dissolved. A collective of the state’s cities challenged that law, but on December 29, 2011, the California Supreme Court issued an opinion which effectively upheld the provisions of AB IX 26. Since AB IX 26 prohibits a redevelopment agency from taking any actions and since the Southern California Logistics Airport Authority was comprised of only two member entities, the Victorville Redevelopment Agency and the city, the authority was on the brink of demise.
Section 6502 of the Joint Powers Act provides that “two or more public agencies” are required to form a joint powers authority and exercise powers thereunder. With the expiration of the Victorville Redevelopment Agency’s charter, the Southern California Logistics Airport Authority was likewise on the brink of extinction.
By absorbing the Victorville Water District into the Southern California Logistics Airport Authority, city officials believe they can preserve its status as a joint powers authority.
In 2007, the Local Agency Formation Commission of the county of San Bernardino approved a reorganization consolidating the formerly independent Baldy Mesa Water District and the Victor Valley Water District into the Victorville Water District as a division of the city of Victorville.
According to a resolution passed by he Victorville city council this week, “in order to ensure the continued existence of the SCLAA given the mandates of AB IX 26 and in order to avoid defaults and or any unlawful or unintended termination of the SCLAA under the Joint Powers Act, it is deemed important and desirable to have the VWD become a member of the SCLAA.”
Accordingly, the resolution stipulates, “The Victorville Water District is hereby added as a member of the Southern California Logistics Airport Authority and shall possess all of the rights and privileges and assume all of the obligations and responsibilities associated with being a member of the Southern California Logistics Airport Authority.”
A question stands as to whether it is in the interest of the customers of the Victorville Water District for the purveyor of the water they utilize to have entangled itself in the effort to finance infrastructure and other improvements at the airport, undertakings that have no connection to the provision of water to customers outside the airport. The resolution, in tortured bureaucratese, references that consideration without, precisely, eliminating the possibility that water customers may end up paying for improvements at the airfield.
“The Victorville Water District and the city recognize and agree that as set forth in Section 31 of the Southern California Logistics Airport Authority Joint Exercise of Powers Agreement, all assets and liabilities of the Southern California Logistics Airport Authority are in fact the assets and liabilities of the Southern California Logistics Airport Authority, and such assets and liabilities are not and shall not be those of the members,” the resolution states.
The resolution also openly suggests that the absorption of the water district into the authority is an opportunistic ploy to preserve the airport authority and that the water district’s participation as a member will be terminated at such time as another member can be found.
“To the extent deemed necessary, the city has the right, at its sole discretion, to remove the Victorville Water District from the Southern California Logistics Airport Authority, and replace it with another appropriate body,” the resolution states.
The directors of the Victorville Water District are the members of the Victorville city council.

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