BOULDER CREEK >> The San Lorenzo Valley Water District has been reckoning in recent weeks with the untimely departures of two longtime members of its senior staff who both say that one board member’s alleged pattern of disrespectful behavior pushed them out the door.

Within a five-week period this fall, the district saw its Director of Finance Kendra Reed and District Manager/General Manager Rick Rogers move on from their roles due, in part, to interactions with Bob Fultz, a board member since 2018.

At the district’s Oct. 5 board meeting, days after submitting her resignation, Reed said she was moving on to another position that would be better for her mental health.

“The extensive scrutiny, criticism, and in my personal opinion, disrespectful behavior toward staff and other board members from Director Fultz has taken a toll,” said Reed. “I want to be fully transparent and I know I’m not alone in this stance and I would hate for another valuable staff member to have to make the same decision to move on and put the district in an even more vulnerable place.”

But more fallout was already expected.

Going public

Rogers, who worked for the district for almost 50 years, announced in August that he was moving his retirement date up to Nov. 3 “because he could no longer tolerate the effect that dealing with Director Fultz was having on his health,” according to an Oct. 19 board agenda report Rogers prepared alongside board member Gail Mahood.

“For years I have been complaining to board chairs and to (the) board and to district council behind the scenes about interactions and the issues with Director Fultz going all the way back to the CZU Fire and so forth,” said Rogers at the meeting. “We have always kept this within the board family. I believe that’s a mistake.”

In light of Rogers’ departure, the district appointed Brian Frus, a Felton resident and registered civil engineer, as its interim general manager.

In the report, Mahood and Rogers claim that Fultz has been “uniquely difficult to work with” since taking office but has been especially problematic since 2020 in the wake of the CZU Lightning Complex Fire and COVID-19 pandemic.

In terms of specific violations of board policy, they allege that Fultz is habitually disrespectful when interacting with staff, frequently attempts to insert himself into day-to-day operational details that should be left to staff and that he undermines staff and creates more work by engaging in private communications with ratepayers about their concerns and complaints.

Fultz’s response

In response, Fultz began by declaring at the Oct. 19 meeting that “there’s two sides to every story” and in a prepared statement said though the past five years have “most definitely been a stressful time for our community and district,” he was proud that the “water continued to flow.”

“For us, the message is to focus on business and not make it personal and that is how I view my role as a board member,” said Fultz, who spoke for eight minutes and said very little outside of his prepared remarks. “In my view, it is impossible for a board member to fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities to the community without asking questions.”

He went on to strike a more defiant tone when it came to the possibility of a reprimand from the board.

“I will continue to do my best to focus on policy,” said Fultz, “but I will vigorously oppose any attempts by this board and our district to suppress my speech, my ability to communicate with our community or my critiques of the district’s approach to the rate increase process or any other topic with which I have an issue.”

The reaction to Fultz’s response from the other four board members, all of whom agreed earlier in the meeting that there was a problem with Fultz’s behavior, was one of dissatisfaction.

Director Jayme Ackemann acknowledged that board members have a responsibility to hear from the public, but said that Fultz “crosses that line from policy-making into engaging in day-to-day direction of activities of the staff” that ultimately undermines its efforts.

“Personally I see no recognition in what he has responded to the primary issue that is being brought up here — his treatment of staff in particular here at these board meetings,” responded board President Mark Smolley at the meeting.

The tools available

Within the item memo, Rogers and Mahood proposed four possible remedies to the situation that included allowing the general manager to excuse staff — other than the secretary — from board meetings to minimize adverse interactions, having Fultz direct all board and committee meeting questions directly to the general manager only, having Fultz submit his questions for staff before the meetings and potentially removing Fultz from the engineering and environmental committee to lessen staff interactions.

However, all options were ultimately cast aside by the board for fear of unintended strain on the staff or because the changes didn’t address the problem head-on. The board considered hiring a labor attorney to conduct an investigation into Fultz’s behavior, but ultimately decided against it because of the cost and because several board members and speakers from the public had already admitted to witnessing the problematic behavior on the record.

“The tools that are available to us as a board to reprimand a board member whose behavior that we don’t like are censure,” said Ackemann. “That is why this conversation is so complicated, because we are trying to do something that is outside of the process that you typically take to handle these kinds of things.”

Still, the topic had been discussed for nearly two hours at that point and the board appeared not to have an appetite to seek a censure.

“I guess I was really, really hoping that I would get some indication from Bob that he heard what we were talking about and we didn’t,” said Mahood. “I need to let this settle in and think more about what I think the appropriate action is.”

The board met Nov. 2 and Nov. 16, but no item related to Fultz’s interactions with staff appeared on the agendas and a spokesperson for the district declined to comment Monday on the situation. Fultz did not respond to multiple Sentinel requests for comment before its late afternoon print deadline.

Ackemann inquired at the October meeting about tasking the administrative committee with drafting updated board interaction guidelines that could set better boundaries at meetings. Mahood said the board policy is revised every January and suggested some of the board’s feedback could be incorporated somehow.

“The main goal, and I hope we accomplished that tonight, was that no matter who spoke, everybody is supportive of our staff,” said Mahood. “They want to make sure this is a healthy work environment and everybody is treated with respect and I don’t think there is any disagreement about that.”