BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
An East Palo Alto property owner has accused the leaders of a water company of holding sham elections to maintain their power and enrich themselves, coming at the expense of residents who must deal with mismanaged wells and deteriorating infrastructure.
Directors for the Palo Alto Park Mutual Water Company oversee their own elections and throw out votes for their opponents without valid reasons, according to the lawsuit filed in San Mateo County Superior Court by Shannon Pekary.
Pekary said three directors — Fidel Alas, Niambi Lincoln and Alberta Mitchell — “have demonstrated a pattern of collusion” that goes back to 2017 and continues to the present day.
“Each of them enjoys financial benefits from the company,” Pekary’s lawsuit said. “As such, the election results are significantly tainted by self-dealing and lack of impartiality.”
Pekary calls out Lincoln in particular for being both a director and paid general manager for the company. Lincoln has allegedly supervised her mother, husband, at least two brothers and her son.
The lawsuit does not name Lincoln’s son, but one of her sons is East Palo Alto Councilman Webster Lincoln.
The company’s payroll expenses are three to five times higher than comparable utilities, and its financial statements are filled with errors, the suit said.
Audit rejected
Despite these discrepancies, the board has repeatedly resisted calls for an independent financial audit, the suit said.
“The board may be prioritizing personal income and insider compensation over the proper operation, maintenance and financial integrity of the company’s water system,” the suit said.
Lincoln, Alas and Mitchell couldn’t be reached for comment Friday.
Director Sharifa Wilson said on a phone call that Pekary files a lawsuit every election, and then she hung up.
Alas, Lincoln and Mitchell allegedly steered the December 2024 election to get Wilson and Barbara Jacobs elected as directors.
Pekary said that he and Ramiro Macias should’ve won, but one-third of their votes were invalidated by the incumbents.
The reasons for invalidating the votes were “inaccurate, vague and not consistently applied,” Pekary said in his lawsuit.
For example, votes were thrown out because the property owner didn’t include their address, but Pekary said the water company could’ve looked up the addresses.
Private water company serves 2,000 people The water company is one of three in East Palo Alto, serving 600 households and an estimated 2,900 residents.
Directors are entitled to free water and $100 for each board meeting they attend, according to the lawsuit.
Property owners get one vote for every 2,500 square feet of land they own, according to the bylaws. They can vote by proxy, meaning they submit a form designating someone to vote on their behalf so they don’t have to attend the election meeting in person.
Previous lawsuit
Pekary previously sued the water company’s directors over their election in December 2019. San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Marie Weiner ruled in his favor and ordered four directors to step down, including Lincoln and Alas.
“The defendants manipulated the outcome by selectively excluding a few proxies from the voting calculations,” Weiner wrote in her decision.
But the directors appealed the ruling, and the appeals court said too much time had passed and allowed them to stay on the board.
This time around, Pekary said he’s hoping the case will move faster so he can get his spot on the board.
Pekary lived in East Palo Alto for 30 years and moved to the San Diego area five years ago. He said he still cares about his neighbors and the tenant who rents his property.
“He’s a great guy, works in a nonprofit in the community and has a large family with special needs. I want them to have clean water,” Pekary said on a phone call Friday.
According to a representative from the State Water Resources Control Board last year, one of the water company’s wells has a significant amount of iron and manganese, and another well is cracked and “in need of repair.”
[Comment removed — multiple violations of the Terms of Use.]
Frankly, the tone of these repeated allegations resembles the kind of rhetoric we see from public figures who insist elections are “rigged” whenever the results don’t go their way. It reflects the Donald Trump election-fraud playbook: claim the process is illegitimate, blame conspirators, and assert that only one outcome—your own victory—could ever be valid. That may make for dramatic headlines, but it is not a healthy way to engage with democratic governance, even in a mutual water company.
It’s pretty clear from the article that the judge ruled that the water company did not count all of the votes and they were the ones that manipulated the outcome of the election in their favor. Seems like contesting that was the thing to do.
The corruption of this company has been known to the community for years, they just refuse all accountability to the neighbors. That whole Lincoln family is a drain on EPA
It is clear to this reader that this media has a bias against the Lincolns.
Your track record is noted with me and others who know the truth.