Board leadership
Rock was appointed to the Montecito Sanitary District Board of Directors in July 2025 and was elected Board President in December 2025, roughly five months later. As a Director and as President, he has pursued the creation and the observance of sound Board procedure and governance.
The changes are not about adding process for its own sake. They are about clarity: who decides what, based on what information, and by when. The Board dissolved numerous committees and retained two standing committees — Finance and Operations — rather than carrying committees that did not meet, or that met without a clear purpose.
Policy work addressed agenda control by the Board President, the chair's authority in conducting meetings, rotation of the District's auditor, the handling of Board-approved events, suspension procedures, and a standing calendar for recurring matters such as the budget and the annual reviews of the General Manager and District Counsel.
Underlying all of it is a distinction Rock returns to often: the Board's role is strategic direction and oversight. Management and execution belong to staff. Blurring the two serves neither.
Over the past year
Rock's focus since joining the Board has been to move matters to decision. Priorities have been identified and decisions taken, rather than carried forward from agenda to agenda.
- A five-year strategic planThe District operated for years without a strategic plan, which left low-priority matters consuming Board attention while critical ones waited. Work on a plan began shortly after Rock joined the Board and is now nearly complete. The priorities set through that process have guided the agenda since.
- Staff retentionThe District had been losing staff to neighboring agencies — a serious problem in a small workforce where a few people carry most of the operating knowledge, and a decisive one for a district that intends to execute a capital program. Rock drew on three decades of employment and labor law practice to work the District's position through the Board in open session and secure authority for meaningful change before negotiations began. The agreement that followed was reached in a single session, where the prior contract had taken nine months, and was embraced on both sides.
- The plant back at the centerWhen Rock joined the Board, strategic attention was directed at consolidation with the Montecito Water District. He argued that consolidation warranted priority only if Montecito Water committed to recycling wastewater, an initiative it had abandoned years earlier. Board attention now centers on stabilizing and rehabilitating the aging treatment plant and on the capital work it requires.
- A clear line between policy and executionBoards exist to set policy, direction, and budget. Staff is responsible for managing and executing that direction within the constraints the Board sets. Rock has held to that boundary consistently, and it is now observed in practice rather than merely stated.
- Regular orderMeetings run under regular order. Business is conducted in sequence, every Director is heard, and staff receives direction through motions carried by a majority rather than conflicting instructions from individual Directors. More business is completed in less time.