Hajas retires as head of Camrosa Water District
By Anna Chang-Yen Special to the Acorn

The man who has steered the Camrosa Water District since tumultuous times in 1992 is retiring.

Over the last two weeks, Richard Hajas announced to district staff and the board of directors that he will leave his job as general manager, effective June 29.

When Hajas took the job, drought and water rationing had left the district embattled. Customers were outraged over bills that sometimes reached thousands of dollars, and some threatened to sue. Three of five members of the board of directors had been recalled, and the other two did not seek reelection.

After 15 years with the Casitas Municipal Water District in Ojai, Hajas left his post as assistant director there to tackle the water problems facing southern Ventura County.

The new board ordered change. "They didn't want things done the way they'd been done in the past," Hajas said. "They wanted rates stabilized.

"They wanted the place to be run efficiently and effectively. They didn't want rationing. They wanted us to work to secure a water supply so that would never happen again. That was my mission."

Today, he has seen the district's dependence on imported water from the Calleguas Municipal Water District fall 25 percent, despite soaring demand. And the district is on its way to realizing even more sources of local water, keeping costs down for the 30,000 people it serves, he said. "We've tried to keep our dependence on imported water at a stable amount. We buy today about the same amount we bought in 1990, even though our demand in the service area has doubled."

Early in his tenure with the district, Hajas also went to work mending contentious relationships with the Pleasant Valley County Water District and the cities of Thousand Oaks and Camarillo, along with battling an outcry for the Camrosa district to disband. "The place was providing no value," he said. "The first thing we did was try to reverse that."

Cooperating with nearby cities and water districts has benefited both the district and its neighbors, Hajas said. Camrosa is in the early stages of the $30 million Renewable Water Resource Management Program, along with water agencies in Thousand Oaks and Camarillo, to further reduce dependence on imported water.

The district also is planning to rehabilitate a well near California State University at Channel Islands and build a reverse osmosis desalting facility there.

"It's just a whole new environment," Hajas said. "Instead of us sitting around just trying to protect our resources, we took a new approach, which is how can we be of value to our neighbors and still serve our constituents, and I think that's what we've done."

At a meeting on Thursday night, board of directors president Al Fox appointed a committee to look into replacing Hajas.

Henry Graumlich, the district's resource manager, has worked with Hajas for 10 years and said replacing him is a tall order. "In personal terms, he's a rare individual. I don't think anyone's ever going to be able to replace him and exactly the kinds of things he was able to do. Richard was a visionary. He had an uncanny ability to really keep his eyes on how things were going to unfold in five years, 10 years."

After leaving his job, Hajas has planned a vacation in China. After that, he said he will consult for the district, but otherwise plans to devote time to personal interests, and get out of the water business after 30 years.

"The blueprint is there now, and there's a staff here that's extremely well-qualified to move that forward."