news story / By Heidi Walters

Water Boarding

Incumbent Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, 29, faces challenger Stephen Davies, 41. Sopoci-Belknap, a community organizer and a Green (the board is nonpartisan, but this stuff matters) comes with big endorsements — the Humboldt County Central Labor Council, State Assemblywoman Patty Berg, Eureka City Councilmember Chris Kerrigan — and four years already under her belt. Davies, a lawyer recently gone from Green to Democrat, comes with obscure endorsements and a fervid desire to unseat Sopoci-Belknap.

Sopoci-Belknap is best known for her role as executive director of Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County. It was DU that pushed Measure T, the recently overturned act that sought to ban non-local corporations from contributing to local election campaigns. Measure T ruptured the local Green Party. And Davies — also a Green, though not a player in the actual rift — falls in the camp against the measure: He’s a member of the ACLU, which decried Measure T as unconstitutional.

“I’m concerned that some of [Sopoci-Belknap’s] political beliefs may not be in the best interest of the water district or the residents of Humboldt County,” Davies said last Thursday after he’d been to the morning session of the water board — his first time at one of its meetings. “Spending a lot of time on something that wasn’t founded on a lot of legal authority didn’t seem like very sound decision-making.”

This is the first time Davies has run for office; to better his chances, he says, he recently switched from Green to Democrat so he could vie for the Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee’s nomination. He didn’t get it — Sopoci-Belknap did, albeit unofficially because she is a Green.

Aide from all that, Davies says his 10 years’ experience litigating environmental law cases, some over water quality issues, and several years of scientific training in underwater sample collection, qualify him for the water board.

He also wants to put the issue of fluoridation and water bagging sales to a public advisory vote, he said.

Sopoci-Belknap is focused on the water. She admits that four years ago, when she upset the board’s status quo by defeating then-president Vern Cooney to become the board’s youngest-ever member and its first woman, she didn’t know much about the district.

“Initially, I was encouraged to run by a number of people because of the water bagging proposal in 2003,” she said last week after the all-day water board meeting. “I was suggested because of my background with democracy and corporations.”

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