Sewer board cancels $16,000 in trips director wanted to make after district closed

BY AMELIA BISCARDI
Daily Post Staff Writer

At the last meeting of the East Palo Alto Sanitary District before its demise, the board decided to rescind payments to a board member who wanted the district to pay for conferences she planned to attend in 2025 including one in Las Vegas.

Longtime board member Glenda Savage had asked to attend two conferences next year. Her fellow board member Kelly Fergusson sought to cancel the trips during the board’s final meeting on Monday (Sept. 30).

As of Tuesday (Oct. 1), the district is now under the purview of the city after a prolonged battle over whether the agency should even exist.

The city had claimed the sewer district blocked new developments by charging outrageous hook-up fees as a way of stopping those projects. The district said it was only asking developers to pay their fair share.

Fergusson sent members of her email list a 46-page document that described five conferences Savage had attended recently or planned to attend next year, even though the district’s board would cease to exist.

Savage was seeking $16,264 in reimbursements from the district.

This included a request to attend the Las Vegas Transform conference from March 16-19 and another conference in San Diego from Jan. 19-22. One conference in Washington, D.C., was about the subject of podcasting.

Savage said she was threatened by Fergusson, who was trying to drag her name through the mud.

“I will not go along with this scheme,” Savage said.

Savage also said she had made the arrangements to attend the conferences before the district’s demise. Savage made the requests in March and July, according to documents provided by Fergusson.

But it appeared last year that it was unlikely the district would continue in the future. The city and San Mateo County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) voted to have the city take over the district on Nov. 15, 2023. The district sued but lost. The takeover process took until Aug. 31 to be finalized.

The board on Monday voted in closed session to cancel Savage’s trips, board member Ofelia Bello said.

The board also heard from their IT consultant, who said he had been working for years without a contract.

Henry Gray, of Golden Touch Computer Consultants, said that every month when he got paid, former General Manager Akin Okupe would negotiate him down to a lower amount than previously agreed upon.

Gray said he asked Board President Dennis Scherzer to get involved. Scherzer said he had never seen the contract. A contract between the district and Gray was signed three weeks ago.

“Anybody who knows Akin knows he doesn’t sign contracts,” Gray said. “You can ask anybody, not just me. Go and ask the workers.”

Board member Betsy Yanez said Gray’s claims made no sense to her.

“That sounds like I’m hearing a joke,” Yanez said.

“If I go to work and I don’t get paid for my job, I would never go back to work at that same place.”

Gray specifically said that his latest paycheck was $1,700 less than the invoice he submitted.

The district ended up voting to unanimously pay Gray the amount.

The board’s acrimonious end came after Fergusson sent out information to her mailing list about Savage’s conference attendance and her concerns about “irregularities.”

Fergusson said that in early August she became aware of what she described as “irregularities in district operations and finances.” Then Fergusson said they evaluated General Manager Akin Okupe and placed him on paid leave 15 days later.

The district later hired an independent firm to look into these claims and according to Fergusson are having the firm investigate claims against her made by Okupe.

Okupe initially commented in a board report that he had been subject to a “hostile work environment” over the past couple months.

Fergusson said that the accusations against her concerned the board’s decision to hire a PR firm.