Long-standing local water board member Jacque McMillan is resigning and, in so doing, giving her Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency peers an opportunity to decide whether to reduce the size of the board.
McMillan, who was first elected to the Castaic Lake Water Agency board in November 2002, has notified SCV Water of plans to step down as a board member, SCV Water spokeswoman Kathy Martin said Friday.
“She wants to spend more time with her family,” Martin said Friday. She and her husband, Bill, have been SCV residents for more than 18 years.
According to Senate Bill 634, which created the SCV Water Agency, the number of directors is to be reduced over time from 14 to nine. Eliminating a board seat through attrition has been a subject discussed among directors since SCV Water was created.
On Feb. 5, when the SCV Water board meets to elect a president and vice president from within its own ranks, directors will have a chance to discuss what they want to do with the seat vacated by McMillan.
Before having announced her departure, McMillan’s term on the board was slated to expire in January 2020.
On Friday, at a special meeting of the SCV board, directors planned to honor and commend McMillan for her 16 years of distinguished service.
For the past 15 years, she has worked with business and community leaders to ensure 19 million Southland residents continue to have a safe, reliable and low-cost supply of drinking water, according to her bio posted on the SCV Water website.
She has worked on several committees of the local water agency, most recently as chair of the Public Outreach and Legislative Committee and as a member of the Water Resources and Watershed Committee.
She was one of the architects who worked on merging the CLWA with former water retailer, Newhall County Water District, to create SCV Water.
Before she was promoted to become a legislative advocate, she worked five years in the Metropolitan Water District’s real property section, acquiring thousands of acres for Diamond Valley Lake, an 800,000-acre-foot reservoir that doubled the Southland’s storage capacity for drinking water.
Prior to joining MWD, she worked for three petroleum companies managing 15 oil field projects in California and acquiring oil, gas and coal rights over nine states and 79 counties.
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