The 2023 Sheep Creek Water Company Annual Budget was illegally discussed and approved by the Board of Directors in closed session during the December 13, 2022 meeting. After the budget was approved, it was added to the agenda after the meeting was concluded, and can be found at the end of the agenda for the meeting.
Quite honestly, that doesn’t seem good enough, so I copied out the specific pages from the agenda and have included here the full Sheep Creek Water Company Budget for 2023. Really not sure why the Board felt the need to illegally discuss and illegally vote on the budget during closed session, but the rate increase probably had something to do with it.
Also, for good measure, California Assembly Bill 240, passed in 2013, is the legislation that the Sheep Creek Water Company violated. This bill is specifically addressing private mutual water companies, such as Sheep Creek Water Company, and added specific requirements to the California Corporations Code, states: “The bill would also require the board of the mutual water company that operates a public water system to adopt, in an open meeting, an annual budget on or before the start of each fiscal year.”
For good measure, since the company has a track record of changing information posted online when problems are pointed out, I took a screenshot of the 12/13/22 agenda to show the budget was indeed discussed and approved during closed session, in violation of AB240. Also, AB240 and the updated California Corporations Code is very specific about what mutual water companies may discuss in closed session, and both the budget review and water shares are topics which needed to be discussed in open session.
Obviously the Board assumes that no shareholders are willing to take the company to court for their violation of AB240, but it is certainly a suspicious move. A company with no secrets and nothing to hide should operate in accordance with the law, and not hide information like an annual budget in the manner Sheep Creek Water Company has done.