Effective government, even at the lower level of a Community Services District (CSD), depends upon the watchful eye of an alert voting public. The effectiveness of public knowledge and consciousness relies upon the public being educated through a free and effective press.

    The Newberry Springs CSD has long suppressed the public's access to information about its actions, which undermines the public's trust.

    The biggest ax chop came on January 14, 2014, when the CSD hired Le Hayes as its general manager (GM). Coming out of retirement after serving 22 years as the Baker CSD's GM, Hayes quickly dropped the audio recording of the Newberry CSD's meetings.

    Hayes trained Jodi Howard, who worked as the CSD's secretary. After Hayes' death, Howard followed Hayes as GM when no one else applied for the job. Her education under Hayes was not to record audio or video of meetings, and her training was to write the skimpiest Minutes.

    Even after Jodi Howard's departure as the Newberry CSD's GM and the fury of litigation between her and the CSD that is continuing, her bad recording practices have continued with the current CSD staff. This mentality of poor performance has become the norm for the Newberry CSD.

    While some CSDs in California practice open and full disclosure and video broadcast their meetings live over YouTube or have videos of their meetings streamed on the Internet, the Newberry CSD continues to hide (with intent) the content of their meetings. The CSD board even refuses the simplicity of audio recording their meetings.

    This continues to perpetuate bad management and prevents a public record of the CSD board's malfeasance.

    The egotistical directors might make friendly neighbors but most are not visionary and skillful in leadership to manage the CSD to where the CSD actually improves the living quality of its residents. The directors' glaring failures are crowned by the damaging industrial solar facilities that they have allowed to be built upwind to Newberry which the CSD could and should have prevented.

    Some directors come with histories of financial failures where they have demonstrated that they can't properly manage their affairs much less your local government.

    The Newberry Springs Community Alliance has provided news reports on the Newberry CSD meetings since 2011. And, yes, some CSD directors and GMs do not like their failures being exposed. This is especially true with some members of the current CSD board that chill the public's right to know.

    To promote the public's education, and to draw attention to the CSD's actions that impact the community, the Community Alliance has been placing flyers on the Post Office bulletin board with the Community Alliance's URL Internet address.

    If Newberry Springs is ever going to halt its downward spiral, there needs to be changes within the CSD. Those changes need to be fostered by the community which must first understand the severity of the mismanagement.

    This website's articles highlight the systemic problems within the CSD. Hopefully, enough community members will become alarmed enough to direct a change.

    To illustrate a problem, for weeks the flyers at the Post Office have been quickly removed either by a particular jackass or by supporters of the CSD's continued corruption. The repeated theft of the flyers constitutes a 1st Amendment federal crime.

    Even two small placards that are placed at two corners of the billboard that draws attention to the medical hazards of silica dust have been maliciously painted over, apparently by associates of the Newberry CSD who do not want the public's awareness of the serious hazard that the CSD has permitted.

    When there are such violations against the revelation of governmental dysfunction, we are in Putin's dark world where the public's right to know is suppressed and persecuted.

The ineffective fiddling Jack
while Newberry suffers with
carcinogenic dust.