Well, well, well, as you can see on the front page of our newspaper, the day of reckoning has come, and Pam Ellis won her case and the CURRENT Heights Water Board agreed to pay some attorney fees as well as place Ellis back on the board as the judge ruled in her and the county’s favor.
If you don’t remember, I’ll take you back in time when this episode of the Heights Water and Sewer District soap opera evolved when Ming Cabrera, Laura Drager, and David Graves were elected onto the Heights Water Board some years ago, and Ming Cabrera was then elected as the head of the board as chairman.
Well, I was fed a big bowl of whiplash as Ming took that entity as the Chairman and ran it even farther down the drain (Yes, pun intended) in the public’s eye as I gave him a chance to turn things around.
YCN originally came onto the scene in covering and following the Heights Water and Sewer District meetings because there were questions from the public as well as board members about how stuff was being done from management, staff as well as a district in general. In fact, there were some that said things were being done illegally and questioned how job bids, procedures, meeting minutes and notices, meeting agendas and meetings in general were conducted. The whole premise of YCN being at those meetings was to document what happened at those meetings as well as report what happened. I feel that is how we as a media and journalists can do our job in reporting and documenting the meetings as well as feature concerns and questions that affect the public, taxpayers and members of our communities while holding elected officials accountable. Overtime, if elected officials are doing things incorrectly, it will come to light overtime, and either they will continue to hide things and be exposed, be voted out or resign.
Well, here is one of those checkpoints in the Heights Water Board saga. Yes, I hold Mr. Cabrera at fault for a good number of things that happened under his watch as chairman of the County Water District of Billings Heights, he was in charge and made a lot of the bad decisions that included voting to remove Pam Ellis off the board.
It was under Ming Cabrera’s watch as chairman when the Heights Water and Sewer District sued the county and Pam Ellis which has now been deemed illegal and unlawful. Ming called the Billings Police Department during that board meeting as chairman to remove Pam physically from sitting at the table as a board member. Thankfully, Pam Ellis moved to the audience side of the room and continued to attend all the rest of the meetings up until today which has been since June 2022. Ming was actually told by Yellowstone County’s Attorney Scott Twito that what he was trying to do is illegal, but Ming continued to go ahead and vote her off the board even though he was told it was illegal to do; hence, this long, drawn-out process and soap opera continued,
But to people like Ming, they seem to feel justified in causing heartache and chaos for others even when they know it’s wrong. He wasn’t paying the bill so it didn’t matter to him. It was the taxpayers and ratepayers of the district that were paying the tab and all the attorney fees, and such because the county was also involved. I’m sure it gave Ming some pleasure and satisfaction in the way it caused issues for Pam and others but he probably felt it justified his actions and disgust for Pam but in the end, it was wrong and justice prevailed. Ming is no longer the chairman of the board, and, thankfully, there are new board members that actually have experience in leadership and governing. But Ming is still on the board, and, in my opinion, needs to resign. I still don’t’ think he knows how to run an honest, open meeting from start to finish. At least the new board Chairman Doug Kary and City appointed board member Jeff Essmann have been doing this kind of governing for many years in public meetings. They are not on the job training unlike what Ming Cabrera attempted. Ming needs to accept responsibility, and the ratepayers need to hold him accountable for his actions, and he needs to resign from the Heights Water Board.
But still I digress, Ming has also filed to run to represent US (the people) in the US (United States) Congress. I’m not kidding folks. Now he wants to represent all of us people in Montana as our US Congressman, not just the ratepayers of Billings Heights which he couldn’t even run.
We don’t need a politician in training milking the taxpayers for all he can. We already have too many of those now. We don’t need another one.
I’ll address that subject later in regards to John Tester’s ability to represent Montana in Congress.
In the meantime, with all due respect, Mr. Cabrera needs to step down from the Heights Water Board and step aside and allow the current board to get the out-of-control Heights Water District back on the track and put an end to this episode of the Heights Water Board Soap Opera.
In the meantime, I’ll think about contributing to Ming Cabrera’s campaign!
See you in the paper.
JDM
Jonathan McNiven, owner and publisher of the Yellowstone County News, writes a regular column called McNiven’s Meanderings in the Yellowstone County News. To learn more about Jonathan, visit his bio page here.
Why would Cabrera serve on the heights water board? What are the residency requirements? Cabrera lives on the west end.