Elections for water district board and Del Rey Oaks City Council deliver wins for public water.

The public takeover of the water system serving the Monterey Peninsula appears far more certain following Tuesday’s election, which also delivered a possible blow to the proposal for a new desalination plant.

In two races for seats on the board of the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, voters delivered resounding victories to two candidates who ran in part on their skepticism about the continued ownership of the local system by California American Water.

Early reporting shows Karen Paull secured 5,249 votes, or 59 percent, to defeat Rudy Fischer in Division 4. Amy Anderson defeated Gary Hoffmann, an appointed incumbent, with 6,255 votes, representing 68 percent of the total in Division 5, as of 10am on Nov. 4.

Paull and Anderson ran with the support of Public Water Now, an advocacy group that arose to challenge Cal Am’s ownership of the local water system. In 2018, Public Water Now rallied voters to pass Measure J, requiring the water district to pursue a public buyout of Cal Am. (A chief architect of Measure J, George Riley, also won a seat on the MPWMD board in 2018.)

The process of claiming public ownership is lengthy, complicated and far from assured even with a clear mandate from voters. The water district board has already completed several steps in the process including a finding of financial feasibility and, on Oct. 29, certifying an environmental impact report. (Hoffman was the lone vote against that most recent step.)

Sometime next year, the board is expected to make Cal Am an offer for its system, which the water utility has said it would reject. In the case of a rejection, the board will have to decide whether to go to court and proceed with eminent domain. To do so, a supermajority – at least five of seven board members – would be required.

With the addition of Paull and Anderson, the board is more sympathetic to a public buyout than before. The two board members who were seen as most skeptical of the buyout option, Hoffman in Division 5, and Jeanne Byrne in Division 4, are gone.

Parallel to the struggle over ownership is the fight over a new water supply for the Monterey Peninsula, with Cal Am pushing for a desalination plant and opponents backing an alternative option of expanding the region’s water recycling plant, operated by Monterey One Water.

The expansion project could have better chances of moving forward thanks to the results of the election in Del Rey Oaks, where Mayor Alison Kerr was reelected with 75 percent of the vote. Two candidates for city council, Kim Shirley and Gary Kreeger, ran on a progressive, pro-public water slate with Kerr. As of Wednesday morning, Shirley led in the four-way council race, and Kreeger was trailing by just one vote for the other council seat.

A shift in the council majority means Del Rey Oaks could break the tie that is keeping the water recycling expansion project in limbo at M1W, on which the city of DRO is currently represented by John Gaglioti, who has consistently voted in support of Cal Am.