Nothing Posted Since April: ANOTHER BROWN ACT VIOLATION

The district’s own website is where residents should be able to see what their board is doing. On the night of Oct. 29, 2026, here is what its document library showed for this year.

What the district’s website shows

The 2026 agendas folder holds four agendas: Jan. 14, Feb. 11, March 11 and April 8. Nothing after that.

The 2026 minutes folder holds two sets of minutes: Jan. 14 and Feb. 11.

Since April, the board has held regular meetings in May, June, July, August, September and October, plus special meetings on July 13, July 22 and Sept. 30. None of those agendas are in the library. The board has approved minutes for meetings from March through September; none of those are posted either. The agendas and approved minutes I have are on pcwdinfo.com.

The gaps go back further. From 2018 through February 2026, the meeting list on pcwdinfo.com shows 15 agendas missing and 5 sets of minutes not posted or not available.

What the law requires

The Brown Act requires a regular meeting agenda to be posted at least 72 hours before the meeting (Government Code section 54954.2); special meetings need 24 hours’ notice (section 54956). Since 2019, an agency with a website must also post the agenda online in one of two ways: a prominent, direct link to the current agenda on the home page, or a home-page link to a dedicated agenda page with the current agenda at the top. Either way, the link can’t be tucked inside a drop-down menu, and the agenda has to be searchable and downloadable. The law doesn’t require minutes to be posted online, and the district has no posting policy of its own.

Stepping back

The district’s home page doesn’t change from meeting to meeting. According to saved copies on the Internet Archive, it has never had a direct link to an agenda. It has had no link to a current agenda since at least January 2025, when I joined the board. When agendas were posted at all, they went into the document library, reached through the site’s menu, and none have been added since April. A resident who wants to know what the board did in the last six months can’t find out from the district’s own website. Combine that with minutes that aren’t posted and records requests answered with “no further response,” and the district’s public record has a large hole in it. Posting each agenda and packet to the library after the meeting, and approved minutes once adopted, would cost almost nothing.

It isn’t a staffing problem. The district has a full-time district and board secretary, and since I joined the board in January 2025, that position has been responsible for posting the agendas and preparing the board documents and minutes for approval. The work still isn’t getting done, and the board, which oversees staff through the general manager, hasn’t fixed it.

Public pay records on Transparent California show the district’s long-standing board secretary received total compensation of $90,578 in 2024 (base pay $71,009, total pay $82,457, benefits $8,121). Source: Transparent California, Pinedale County Water District 2024 salary records (transparentcalifornia.com), which republishes State Controller data.

Dutcher’s Take

Agendas missing since April. Minutes missing since February. Special meetings about active lawsuits, with no notice online that residents would ever see. And when I, a sitting director, asked for copies of the court filings in those same lawsuits, the answer was “no further response.” If the district won’t give one of its own board members public court records, how can residents expect it to give them even what the law requires? As the saying goes, we don’t know what we don’t know. Residents can’t ask about records they’ve never seen. Until the records are public, I will keep posting on pcwdinfo.com what the district won’t, from the public documents I can obtain. AND CONTINUE TO ASK THE APPARENT UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS.