Candidate Response: Bryan Largay
5. What responsibilities and challenges do you see for the District in working with neighboring water districts/companies such as Bracken Brae, Forest Springs, Big Basin, Scotts Valley, the City of Santa Cruz, and Soquel Creek and organizations such as the Santa Margarita Groundwater Agency?
Collaboration is often hard, but it can produce enormously valuable results. The San Lorenzo valley water district is in a unique position to help our neighbors recover from the CZU lightning fire, and restore water to their neighborhoods. Adjacent municipal water suppliers have a stake in the same aquifers and watersheds that we do. Navigating the details of how we work together to share water and ensure sustainability will be an essential part of our work over the next four years. Ensuring that our ratepayers are not required to subsidize others is important, while at the same time we need to be good neighbors. I will bring my expertise in water resources, my extensive experience in collaborative process, and my understanding of water policy to help solve these challenges. If done right, the result will be lower water costs, greater water reliability, and better stewardship of our water resources.