From the Desk of Teri Nigretto
President, Eastsound Water Users Association
Good evening EWUA members,
It’s Tuesday. How many Tuesdays have we looked out the window and found ourselves once again accused of “financial malfeasance.” I keep wondering; what is “malfeasance” and what relevance does it have at EWUA?
Malfeasance is the willful act of doing harm, especially in service of one’s “official capacity,” and where it interferes with the performance of “official duties.”
Aha! Mistakes – and we all make mistakes – don’t count. Neither do misjudgments, or miscalculations. Malfeasance requires intent, and neither Steve Smith nor the forensic accounting firm we hired to burrow through EWUA’s books have shown that your board or staff have acted willfully to cause harm – any harm whatsoever – to this association or its membership.
Not on Tuesday. Not on any day.
Mike Parnell, former Oakley executive and benefactor of Eastsound’s Christian School, has had multiple opportunities to present evidence of our alleged malfeasance in court, but he has declined to do so. Rather, he falsely claims that financial malfeasance occurs when EWUA spends money defending itself in court when his lawyers accuse us of financial malfeasance. I call that “political malfeasance!”
Funny thing about malfeasance. You know it when you see it. But what we see instead is a political project designed to discredit your board and distract from a very real threat to our ability to bring you water – namely a brazen attempt to execute a hostile takeover of this organization.
Here is former board member and candidate for County Council Jonnie Welsh to say more about that…
Johnathan Welch, Former Board Member
I was working at the Orcas Ferry Terminal in 2021 during the late summer when Steve Smith came through the booth.
I put him in Lane 1 and turned to assist other passengers. About 20 minutes later, Smith came running back to the booth and spent about 10 minutes explaining his ideas for the future of EWUA.
He said he had this lucrative idea of turning EWUA into a private, employee-owned company, that the Board had a position open, and he wanted to put me on the Board to help.
He said the new entity would be an employee-owned company, and that the Board would participate in some of the profit sharing. He wanted me to be on the Board to help him with this idea. He sold me on it to the point where it really caught my interest.
At that point I thought there was going to be a paid position. I didn’t realize what I was walking into. What he described and what ended up being reality were two different things.
After that initial conversation we reconnected and were talking about the appointment when he reaffirmed the idea of taking the company private, and how he wanted to manipulate the Board to have enough allies to get it done.
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