Idyllwild Water District Director Geoffrey Caine has submitted his resignation effective March 1. With much regret, Caine said health

Geoffrey Caine
Photo by JP Crumrine

problems are taking longer to improve than he wished and are forcing his departure from the board.

In his letter, he wrote, “This is very disappointing. I wanted to become a director in part to help revitalize what I, and many others, saw as a very poorly performing board, and was very much looking forward to working on this with others in the community and on the board.”

Lamenting Caine leaving the board, Director Peter Szabadi said, “Geoffrey was a great addition to our board.  We will all miss his intelligence, dedication and most of all, his sense of humor. He had a long-term vision for our district and its need to meet the demands posed by the environmental challenges to our water supplies.”

His need to resign creates personal discouragement for Caine, since he had three goals for the board during his tenure. He hopes his former colleagues will want to address them.

In his letter, he expressed his desire to see the three local water districts — Idyllwild, Fern Valley and Pine Cove — merge. While he believes a merger would yield a cost savings for all three communities, he wished “… we could have begun to regularly associate with the directors of the other districts in order to build better relationships.”

He also encourages IWD to become more involved in the community. This would create a greater connection with more people and groups, thus finding it easier for common solutions.

Besides wanting a communal role of the district, Caine urges his colleagues to be cognizant and concerned about the coming of another drought. He thought other cities and countries might have ideas and solutions that would benefit IWD if a water shortage were to begin to develop.

Caine was unanimously appointed to the IWD board in January 2016, following the resignation of two other directors. He and Szabadi were appointed at the same meeting. No one challenged the incumbent directors during the August election period. In July, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors re-appointed Caine for a full four-year term beginning in December 2017. Whoever replaces him will have to stand for election to the remaining two years of the term in August 2019.