A water board election that normally draws little notice has turned into one of Kern County's more dramatic down-ballot stories this fall. Mary Parada, a challenger who got involved in local water politics through river-advocacy work, appears to have defeated longtime incumbent Tammy Johnson for the Division 4 seat on the Kern County Water Agency board, with 52.58% of the vote to Johnson's 47.42% in the count so far.
The result is not yet final, but as reported by SJV Water, the agency is now guaranteed to seat at least one new board member, with a distant possibility of two. That second possibility hinges on Division 2, where incumbent Laura Cattani and challenger Daneya Williams are separated by just 200 votes, less than a single percentage point, according to the same report.
Williams, a Kernville rafting guide and store manager who said she felt the agency needed fresh perspectives on the river and other issues, ran in a race in which more than 30,000 people voted. Her odds of overtaking Cattani are, per the report, slim but not zero.
What's Still Uncounted
According to Kern County Elections, an estimated 7,130 ballots remained unprocessed as of Nov. 13, with 233,826 ballots already processed countywide. The elections office says the next batch of results will be released by Tuesday, Nov. 17.
Not every outlet has reported the same unprocessed-ballot figure. BakersfieldNow reported a much higher number, 30,054 ballots still unprocessed, alongside the same 233,826 processed count. The supplied record does not make clear whether that figure reflects a different snapshot in time than the county's Nov. 13 estimate, so the discrepancy remains unresolved.
A Professor Turned Water Advocate
Parada is a Spanish professor at California State University, Bakersfield who became involved in Kern River issues through Bring Back the Kern, a coalition of public-interest groups pushing Bakersfield to address river operations. She has said she was concerned about problems around transparency, accountability and representation at the water agency, and has attributed her apparent success to a desire among voters for more democratic water governance.
She said decisions affecting every Bakersfield household have been made without real urban representation, multilingual outreach, or sincere efforts toward restoring flows to the Kern River. Cattani said that, if she retained her seat, her focus would be bringing water into Kern County and that she strongly supported the Delta Conveyance Project, a planned 36-foot-diameter tunnel that would carry Sacramento River water 45 miles south beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the California Aqueduct.
Parada thanked Division 4 voters for their trust and support, and said watching the ballots come in was exciting, surprising, and nerve-racking. Cattani praised Williams for her interest and effort in the race, saying that if Williams won, she hoped Williams would ask questions of agency staff and board members, and encouraging Parada to do the same. Johnson, who worked for California Water Service for many years and was appointed to her seat, said she was disappointed with the results but wished Parada well.
The Stakes at a Powerful Agency
The Kern County Water Agency is one of the most powerful water boards in Kern County and the second-largest contractor for State Water Project water. It administers the state contract on behalf of 13 mostly agricultural water districts known as member units, which pay the agency a fee for its services, while also providing wholesale supplies to urban water purveyors serving large sections of east Bakersfield.
The agency manages $371 million in funds and employs 55 people, according to figures cited by SJV Water. It is one of six entities controlling the Kern Water Bank and separately runs its own Pioneer groundwater bank, and it controls significant water movement into and out of the county through its Cross Valley Canal, which connects the California Aqueduct to numerous other canals reaching central Bakersfield.
The agency is also a real party in interest in the Kern River water-rights litigation because it owns rights to high-flow water. The California Court of Appeal reversed an injunction and a flow-rate order in the case of Bring Back the Kern v. City of Bakersfield, sending the matter back for further proceedings, according to a California Court of Appeal opinion reproduced by Justia. The California Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling within the next two months on whether Bakersfield must ensure enough water passes its weirs to keep fish alive.
Lois Henry, who wrote about the current race for The Bakersfield Californian, is CEO and editor of SJV Water, a nonprofit independent online news outlet covering San Joaquin Valley water issues. Kern County's elections office said the next update to the vote count is due by Tuesday, leaving both the Division 4 and Division 2 outcomes technically open until more ballots are processed.
