PADRE DAM APPOINTS DIRECTOR AFTER NO CANDIDATE FILED TO RUN

By Mike Allen

Photo:   Rocky Qualin (beard) and Brian Fordyce, new directors of Padre Dam Water District

December 12, 2022 (Santee) -- Brian Fordyce was appointed this month as the newest director for the Padre Dam Municipal Water District board of directors, taking over a seat for District 1 formerly held by Doug Wilson.

Wilson’s term expired this year, and because there was no challenger for the seat, the board appointed Fordyce to a four-year term expiring December 2026.

Fordyce is the owner of a Santee construction company. He was born in San Diego, has been a Santee resident for more than 30 years, and a graduate of San Diego State University with a degree in Speech Communication. He has owned and operated his business for 30 years.

He becomes the second director to be appointed by the board in recent months. In September, the board appointed Rocky Qualin to the District 5 seat previously held by the late James Peasley. When a challenger for that seat failed to materialize, the board appointed Qualin for a four-year term.

A similar situation occurred on the Santee City Council this year when both incumbents, Ronn Hall and Rob McNelis, were appointed to new four-year terms prior to a scheduled November election because no challenger filed candidate papers for either seat.

Board President Bill Pommering was re-elected in November for District 3 seat. The other board members are Suzanne Till for District 2 and Augie Caires for District 4.

Wilson has served the community in different capacities at Padre Dam for the last 33 years. He initially served as a board member in the late 1980s, then was hired as the district’s director of finance in 1997 and later took the helm of CEO/General Manager. Upon retiring from CEO/General Manager in 2010, Wilson was elected to the board again where he served three consecutive four-year terms until retiring this year.

Padre Dam provides water, sewer, recycled water and recreation services to approximately 102,000 residents in East County including Santee, El Cajon, Lakeside, Flinn Springs, Harbison Canyon, Blossom Valley, Alpine, Dehesa and Crest.

The public agency, in conjunction with three other agencies, San Diego County, the city of El Cajon, and Helix Water District, broke ground this year on the largest infrastructure project in the region’s history, the $950 million East County Advanced Water Purification program.

The system being constructed would capture and treat about 15 million gallons of sewage currently pumped to the city of San Diego’s Point Loma treatment plant, producing about 11.5 million gallons of drinkable water or about 30 percent of the region’s need. The project is scheduled to be completed by 2025.