Quiet incumbent, loud newbie battle for Water Management District’s Seaside seat.

With only a shallow pool of candidates on the November ballot, the few campaign signs around Seaside – like the ones trumpeting Dean Provence for the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District board – stand out.

The Division 1 challenger may not be well known in local politics, but thanks to a stuffed campaign coffer, he’s rolled out the signs and a polished website. His support comes chiefly from hospitality and business interests, with cash from the California Real Estate PAC ($5,000), Monterey County Business PAC ($2,000), Salinas Valley Leadership Group ($1,500) and Operating Engineers Local Union No. 3 PAC ($1,500), according to campaign finance forms filed Sept. 3.

Incumbent Brenda Lewis, by contrast, is still low profile. She says she hasn’t raised any funds yet, and her Facebook campaign page hasn’t been freshened since her last run in 2011.

Provence, a Realtor, echoes the most common complaint lobbed at the water district: that it’s failed to fulfill its 35-year-old mission of developing a new water supply. He wants it to happen already, in a way that will keep ratepayer bills in check – though he’s not sure the intake wells in California American Water’s proposed desal project will work.

He suggests Lewis has been too passive during board meetings. “I don’t know that she’s been a real voice of the people,” he says. “I don’t know that she’s been actively involved.”

But Lewis says she’s lived up to her campaign promise to bring the water board together. When she was elected in May 2011, the ideologically divided board had seen a spate of 3-4 votes. Lewis’ election was viewed as a majority lock for the slow-growthers until pro-business candidate Jeanne Byrne knocked Regina Doyle off the board that November, resetting the split.

But instead of bickering, Lewis says, the board has enjoyed a spate of unanimous votes during her term, which she says has allowed it to make progress on a number of projects: aquifer storage and recovery, groundwater recycling and a small desal operation on the Peninsula.

“It’s not that we like each other any better, but we do work better together,” she says. “It’s enabled us to make some decisions to bring the water board into a much better place financially.”

Lewis and Provence were scheduled to debate at Seaside’s Oldemeyer Center on Sept. 25, past the Weekly’s deadline.

The Division 2 seat is also up for renewal, but incumbent Judi Lehman’s opponent, Bill Thayer, dropped out.