http://www.heraldandnews.com/klamath/longtime-kid-board-member-resigns/article_ccb8e114-bdaa-5cf2-afad-b4c6738d0c66.html

Longtime KID board member resigns

By Holly Dillemuth, Herald and News 8/16/17

‘On behalf of the entire Basin, I’d like to very sincerely thank Dave for the amount of time he has committed to preserving our way of life.’ — Ty Kliewer, Klamath Irrigation

District board vice-chair

Longtime Klamath Irrigation District Board member Dave Cacka officially resigned from the board Tuesday afternoon via an announcement by Ty Kliewer, KID’s board vice-chair.

Cacka, who could not be reached for comment by press-time, has served on the board since 1993. Cacka represented residents living in Zone 5. He also served on a committee handling the Takings Case, regarding the 2001 government shutoff of water to Bureau of Reclamation Klamath Project irrigators, according to Kliewer.

“Dave’s kind of been an institution of the board for a very long time,” Kliewer said. “The guy is an encyclopedia of knowledge about the district. He’s helped lead the district through a lot of very, very perilous times very successfully and we’re going to miss his intelligence and all the history that he just knew off the top of his head.”

“At minimum, there are going to be growing pains here and there,” Kliewer added. “On behalf of the entire Basin, I’d like to very sincerely thank Dave for the amount of time he has committed to preserving our way of life.”

Kliewer expressed optimism for KID’s future, though, as well as a sense of unity at the district moving forward.

“We have a lot of really innovative thinkers involved with KID now and we’ve taken history and put a new twist on it,” Kliewer said. “I think we’re going to have a significantly stronger district in the very near future.”

August marks a year since the start of a recall effort to unseat two members of the board – Brent Cheyne, Grant Knoll and Ken Smith. Only the recall of Cheyne was successful to remove him from the board. Knoll and Smith survived the recall, and Smith did not seek re-election once his term was up.

“We’re all Klamath Basin farmers and we’re all in this together,” Kliewer said. “We’ve seen a lot of things that can happen when we’ve been fractured, polarized in the past. There’s probably a lot of those things that wouldn’t have happened if we would have been united.

“I think the community is very happy to have that in the rearview mirror,” Kliewer added. “Now our big goal is, how do we secure our water supply as best we can and how do we deliver it as effectively and economically as we can.”

The board may consider making an appointment to fill Cacka’s open post but no action was taken Tuesday on the matter.

Those interested in an appointment to the board of directors must own property in Zone 5, according to KID’s legal counsel Nathan Rietmann.

Interested parties can contact the KID office at 541-882-6661 or visit the office at 6640 KID Lane, Klamath Falls.

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