Holley-Navarre Water System Board incumbents ousted in election

The two incumbents running for reelection were unseated in Tuesday night's election for the Holley-Navarre Water System Board of Directors, two months after the board made a controversial vote to hire ex-County Commissioner Rob Williamson as its head of operations. 

Doug Larson and Joe Aguirre were the only two incumbents in an eight-person pool of candidates who were running for four seats on the utility's decision-making board. Two other board members, Brett Ramsey and Shane Kahl, did not seek re-election this year. 

The four new board members are Mike Kennedy, Fred Terasa, Kevin Lanier and Yvonne Harper, who each netted more than 600 votes of the 825 votes cast.

Larson and Aguirre received 126 and 181 votes respectively, and Joseph Genovese and Jennifer Jones pulled in 200 and 112 votes each. 

The election results appear to show a sharp rebuke of the Board of Directors that, in November, voted to place Williamson at its helm. Several members of the utility said they were concerned that the board had voted 5-1 to hire the former commissioner just three months after he was defeated in a landslide vote in the County Commissioner's race. 

Members said they were concerned the board did not make the job publicly available and did not ask for input from the more than 14,000 members who collectively own the utility. 

Frank Salvato, a Navarre citizen and executive director of the Santa Rosa First PAC, said members of the citizens’ group were “very pleased” with the election results.

“The owners of Holley-Navarre Water System spoke with a firm voice,” he said. “They demanded change, reform, transparency and an end to corruption, and they made the first steps in doing that, and by a dramatic margin.”  

Salvato added that the group’s work to reform the utility was “not done” and that he was confident the new board members would fulfill the platforms on which they ran.

“We will be providing the same oversight that we did before they got elected to this current board,” Salvato said. “If, in fact, they fail in transparency and accountability, if they transgress the bylaws, we are going to hold their feet to the fire that they fulfill their campaign promises.”

Annie Blanks can be reached at ablanks@pnj.com and 850-435-8632.