CANDIDATES KEEPING POLITICS CLOSE TO HOME.

Byline: Eugene Tong Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - For two Newhall County Water District candidates, water politics runs in the family.

Incumbent Joan Dunn is seeking a second, four-year term on the five-member panel governing the 9,000-customer public utility. Her husband, Ed Dunn - long a voice of discontent on local water boards - is fighting to get back into office.

He served on the Newhall board from 1994 to 1997 and was elected in 1998 to the Castaic Lake Water Agency's board of directors but lost re-election in 2002.

The ``Dunn Team'' represents the voice of dissent in a part of north Los Angeles County dependent on state water to meet current and future needs. It is an area where water supply figures are used both to justify and stymie development.

``None of us know for sure what's going to happen tomorrow,'' Joan Dunn said. ``How could we be so positive for the next 20 to 25 years without knowing all that we need to know (about water supply planning)?''

``The district is responsible to ratepayers, (and) approving new projects without great impact on existing customers,'' Ed Dunn said.

Another candidate, Trish Lester, is a Valencia public-relations consultant who is running independently, but shares the Dunns' skepticism about the region's water supply.

``You don't want to be building more homes or businesses until you know when you turn on the tap, there is water coming out of it,'' said Lester, whose past clients include Newhall Water. ``I'm concerned about the way statistics are read, and about how they're going to read in a dry year, not yesterday.''

They face incumbents Barbara Dore and Maria Gutzeit and challenger B.J. Atkins Nov. 8 for a shot at one of three seats on a public utility seen as both the conscience of the public and an obstacle to progress, depending on your point of view.

``We just want things done the way this country is founded,'' Ed Dunn said. ``The district needs a lot of help. It needs some backbone.''

The Dunns have a mostly self-financed campaign, taking out more than $5,000 in loans from their jewelry business. Ed Dunn amassed about $3,300 and spent $2,200 on mailers, according the campaign finance statements.

Joan Dunn so far has collected $4,200, spending nearly $3,000. Contributions include $250 from a Burbank-based film converter company owned by fellow water board member Lynne Plambeck, also a frequent critic of local water policy.

Lester filed only a short form because contributions and expenditures to her campaign totaled less than $1,000.

Though outspent some 10-to-1 by Atkins, Dore and Gutzeit, Joan Dunn said their home-spun campaign proves they're free from special-interest influence.

``We're doing it for the people,'' she said. ``We want to ensure there is balance.''

Ed Dunn claims the Castaic Lake Water Agency - the public wholesaler of state water allocations to purveyors such as Newhall Water - and a Newhall County Water District majority of Gutzeit, Dore and Atkins, are pro-development and ignore the environment and public interests.

``Three solid votes for special interests,'' he said. ``We need the Newhall County Water District to stand up to them.''

Prior to joining the Newhall board, Joan Dunn took part in a 1999 lawsuit against the CLWA, which sought to purchase water retailer Santa Clarita Water Co. Plaintiffs said they were concerned it was a step toward a monopoly, which could favor development interests.

Agency officials said they wanted better management of supplies. CLWA won the case on appeal in 2004 and carried out the $63 million purchase.

``We try to be in the middle,'' Joan Dunn said. ``But seeing what they've done down here - they don't just want the flat lands out there; they want the hills and the rivers.''

Their skepticism runs all the way to the Santa Clarita Valley Urban Water Management Plan, the main planning document that decides how much growth the region's existing water supplies could accommodate. As a NCWD board member Joan Dunn joined Plambeck and Gutzeit to challenge figures in the 2000 report.

According to the Dunns' campaign Web site: ``We have seen a plethora of glowing water reports with misinformation, deception, and a general 'smoke screen' of the status and reliability of our local and state water supplies.''

Lester agreed.

``I think the statistics about the viability of water are being bent to the will of whoever's been reading them, and they're being regurgitated to the public to win their votes,'' she said.

Still, Joan Dunn held back the harshest criticism for the draft 2005 water management plan, which is scheduled for a Nov. 9 vote.

``They're getting more honest,'' she said. ``It's only because we've been pushing at them for so long. ... You cannot stop all growth. We have to look at the projects and say, Can we serve them?''

The Dunns and Lester believe state water is unreliable - natural disasters, environmental lawsuits or policy changes could disrupt the California Aqueduct.

``I can potentially buy a $10 million house, but I still have to raise the money,'' Lester said. ``There is potential to kingdom come. If we're going to get a dry year, we're going to get whatever they give us.''

Yet Ed Dunn is lukewarm about a CLWA plan to store water in Kern County in case of a disruption.

``You can't rely on it. You have to get the water over the Tehachapi (Mountains).'' He said pipelines running through there would be exposed to severe tremors, and he suggested the Antelope Valley as a storage alternative, though pursuing such a project could take years.

``We can have all the development we want here if we get it from the Antelope Valley,'' he said. ``The responsible thing is you would slow the building until all these things are on line.''

Joan Dunn pleaded for more transparency from local water policymakers.

``We want to see it run honestly,'' she said. ``It's not fair to not have public representation. ... It has to have some truth in all this. I can't believe the truth is completely covered up, and it's got to come out some time.''

Eugene Tong, [phone]

eugene.tong(at)dailynews.com