Before addressing the looming dismantling of critical water supply infrastructure in Mendocino County during a recent Town Hall in Ukiah, both federal Rep. Jared Huffman (D – San Rafael) and state Assemblyman Chris Rogers (D – Santa Rosa) expressed grave concerns about what they described as the current dismantling of the United States government and the looming loss of American Democracy.
“There is a lot to talk about, and if I were you, I think what I would want to know is, ‘does my representative in Congress understand this moment, and what the heck is he doing about it?” said Huffman, speaking to a packed auditorium at Mendocino College on April 4, adding that he had “never been more worried about the future of our country,” which he described as “lurching toward Authoritarianism.”
As to what he was doing, Huffman said it was “everything I can as a minority member of Congress with every tool I’ve got,” explaining that he was doing as many town halls as he could recently because “this is a moment that we need to communicate better, because I know that people are afraid and they’re worried, and they want to know everything I’m doing on their behalf in Washington.”
And as to what the average citizen could do, Rogers said “the march toward Authoritarianism relies on people thinking that they have no hope and no power, on people thinking that they have no way to push back. But you do – your voice matters, and we’re seeing the impact of that right now.”
When the lawmakers began taking questions from the audience, the first was from a man asking how Huffman could support “the removal of the Potter Valley Project and be comfortable with stripping water away from 600,000 of your constituents… and when will you conduct a town hall in Potter Valley, the community that will be most (affected) by your decision to remove the project?”
“First, let me just tell you that an issue that is super vital to our region, to our environment and to folks in both the Eel and Russian River basins really should not be political, and it should not be politicized, but there has been a firehose of disinformation and conspiracy theories circulating, which are being circulated for very political reasons by very political people,” Huffman said. “Yes, there are 600,000 people in the North Bay who get some of their water through the Russian River system, and no one is talking about cutting off the water to 600,000 people. Nobody I know thinks that is a good idea, and I certainly don’t.
“I‘ve been working for eight years to get folks in both basins engaged on this subject because I knew change was coming, that this 100-year-old hydroelectric project was likely going away,” he continued. “And that’s why I engaged a very inclusive ad-hoc community process that included folks from all different perspectives, including right here in Mendocino County, including two of your previous Mendocino County Supervisors from Potter Valley, and including water managers from up and down the Russian River basin to make sure that people from both sides started talking to each other, so that if (Pacific Gas and Electric, which owns the hydroelectric plant called the Potter Valley Project) pulled the plug on this thing, which we could all see was a possibility, because they were losing $6 million a year on this antiquated project, and that was before they discovered the seismic risk, which means they have had to lower storage in Scott Dam. But all of these facts get lost in the politics that is coming at us fast and furious, all of a sudden, from certain folks.
“So look,” Huffman continued. “(PG&E) tried to give this thing away and nobody wanted, and we are now way down the road where they are under a (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) order to decommission the project and remove infrastructure. So, this is a moment of change, and a moment of peril for those of us in the Russian River basin if we don’t work cooperatively with the folks in the Eel River basin. And the good news is, we have a historic agreement where stakeholders in both basins support a continued, fish-friendly diversion into the Russian River that can meet the water needs of the Russian River stakeholders, (which) is all of us here, and I’m one of them.
“Right now, you’re getting a trickle through the Potter Valley Project, because PG&E hasn’t made power, or diverted the (previous) amounts of water in years, and they’re never going to again,” Huffman added. “So if you fight about this for another 10 or 20 years, or you try to blow this (agreement) up, that trickle that is coming into Lake Mendocino right now is all you’re ever going to get. But if we come to the table in good faith and support this win-win, Two-Basin Solution, you’ll get a lot more than that. You’ll get way more (water) than we’ve been getting for the last few years, and we’ve got a few years to plan and be smart, and improve our ability to store water, so there can actually be a lot more water than we’ve been getting in recent years.
“So that’s what I’ve been doing about this,” Huffman concluded. “And it doesn’t make for good conspiracy theories, but I think it’s pretty darn good water policy for this region, and I’m very proud of it. And in a few days, I will be at a signing ceremony at Lake Mendocino, because we are going to raise Coyote Valley Dam, and that increased storage is going to make all of this work so much better. This is a huge priority, I’m dedicated to protecting the water supply for this region. And I promise you, that if you weed through the hysteria and conspiracy theories, you’ll find facts that very much back up everything I’m telling you.”
Rogers then told the crowd he met with members of the Mendocino County Farm Bureau before the Town Hall and noted that during their discussion he mentioned he serves on a budget committee that is implementing “Prop 4, which the state of California passed just this last November, (and so there is) $10 billion there, (some of which) is for better water storage solutions… and I am happy to work with local folks on projects they are proposing to try and meet that need. We know that what this comes down to is making sure folks feel comfortable about how much water they have and when they have it. So working with local jurisdictions to find funding to advance projects … is going to happen, and I look forward to working with (Huffman) on that.”
When the woman given the last question asked how the lawmakers could stop what she saw as encroaching fascism from a presidential administration that she described as “not an administration, it’s a regime, clearly. So I think we need to start naming what it is. And also, I think a lot of people here want to know what is the most effective way to stop this? So what can we do, and what can both of you do to deal with a not-normal situation?”
“So, in terms of what you can do, showing up at town halls and being engaged like this is part of it,” Huffman said. “This matters, this is something. And I really want to thank you. This citizen engagement at all levels of government is how we show the folks who would do bad things to our Democracy that we’re paying attention, that we’re not overwhelmed, that we’re not distracted and fighting with each other. That we’re actually coming together as ‘Team America’ to stand up and fight for our Democracy … and all of it is serving notice to the folks back in Washington that Americans are not going to stand idly by while this happens.
“I did not want to be serving you in Congress during a rerun of 1930s Germany,” Huffman continued, describing the country as being “marched down the path to the dictatorship, but here’s the good news: We’ve got a chance to produce a different and better outcome than 1930s Germany, so that’s what this engagement is all about,” closing with a quote from “an Italian dissident from the 1930s as fascism was rising who said ‘We need pessimism of the intellect, and fierce optimism of the will,’ and that is my North Star about where we are right now: ‘Pessimism of the intellect,’ (meaning) eyes wide open, because this stuff is happening, it is real, and we can’t wish it away, we’ve got to face it for what it is; but also ‘optimism of the will,’ because we are not powerless to stop it.”
“And part of that creep toward fascism relies on people feeling that they have no hope, they have no outlet or ability,” said Rogers. “But sharing your personal stories makes it much more difficult for people to turn a blind eye to what’s happening. And another thing I keep preaching to people is, ‘Don’t allow people like Elon Musk to be a meat shield for everybody else who is enabling the terrible behaviors. He is the richest man in America, he doesn’t care. But the members of Congress who are behind him that have abdicated their authority … they’re the ones that need to feel the heat from you and their constituents.”
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