Alina Layng Response to Question #5:

5.  Over the last decade, the SLV Water District absorbed the Felton and Lompico Water Districts and declined to merge with the Scotts Valley Water District. The Bracken Brae and Forest Springs Water Districts in Boulder Creek are in final stages of negotiation to merge with SLVWD. Do you think the District has an obligation to also merge with the Big Basin Water Company? Why?

From an environmental standpoint, it’s always better to manage a drainage-basin as a whole, and by coming together, we not only make our watershed stronger, but just as importantly, our community. My heart would plead that we do have an obligation to help our neighbors after such a tragic event such as the CZU fire. My family has coworkers and neighbors whose houses burned in the Big Basin service area. They struggle to rebuild or sell without reliable water. I have an 80 year old friend of the family,  whom my son affectionately calls grandpa, who lives at the golf course. He is constantly struggling with water boils or outages, but it is impossible for him to carry large amounts of drinking water in, so he has to rely on his daughters for a basic need that should be coming out of the faucet.  Our neighbors deserve to be able to move on from the CZU fire and have safe, reliable, clean drinking water.