Tim Lange, elected to the Pine Cove Water District board in August, submitted his resignation at the March 9 meeting.
“It is given with mixed feelings,” he said. He and his wife will be moving to Willamette Valley in Oregon, where he resided for about eight years in the 1970s.
Lange was consistently upbeat and positive about the community and his board colleagues. In his resignation letter, Lange wrote, “On the one hand, it has been a pleasure to serve the Pine Cove community. On another, I am under advisement to live at a lower elevation.”
“I will miss Tim’s presence on the board and wish him well as he moves to the next chapter in his life. His quiet, cerebral manner was a constant calming force for us all as we tackled some tough issues,” said President Robert Hewitt about Lange’s time with his fellow directors.
Lange was appointed to the PCWD board in July 2015 to finish the term of former board President Mike Esnard, whose term expired in December 2015. In the August election, Lange also ran for and won a full four-year term, which will expire in December 2019.
Whoever replaces Lange will serve until December 2017. The final two years of the term will be filled through an election in August 2017. State law requires appointees to stand for election if more than two years remain in the term to which they were appointed.
His resignation was effective following the meeting. Hewitt announced that Pine Cove residents interested in replacing Lange should submit their applications by the close of business Friday, April 8, and the board will review the applicants and try to make a choice at its April 13 meeting.
The board tentatively approved a resolution for the annual standby assessment 5-0. A public hearing on the $30 assessment will be held at the June 8 meeting, Hewitt said. The assessment is applied to parcels in the district without an active water meter.
In water business, PCWD’s February water usage was 2.1 million gallons, which was about 100,000 gallons less than January, but 130,000 gallons more than February 2015.
“Well no. 10 [the monitoring well] is holding its own,” General Manager Jerry Holldber said. “It will take a few months for the precipitation to affect it.”
The groundwater level of several of the district’s other wells has fallen some since the extra pumping during December when the district experienced inordinate leaks.
During the public comment period, Pine Cove resident and realtor Marge Muir again expressed her objection to the district’s subsidization of rain barrels for individual’s use and the time it is taking to propose a revision to the basic operating rule, Ordinance 4.