Three areas of work

St. Helena's water system has been the subject of a Napa County Grand Jury report. When the city prepared its formal response, Scott reviewed the draft and flagged multiple accuracy and citation problems before it went out, including a "75% reduction in taste and odor complaints" figure that appeared three times in the draft without any cited source. He's pushed for the city's public record on water quality to be something residents can actually verify, not just take on faith.

Scott raised these two water items directly with the City Manager's office and stayed on them until they landed on the agenda: a mitigation plan for the discolored water problem, and the annual water supply and demand report. There will now be a water quality update at future meetings so we can start to change the prioritization and governance of the enterprise. That kind of follow-through, working an issue with staff between meetings rather than waiting for it to show up on its own, is a big part of how Scott approaches the job.

This sits alongside his broader work digging into the Water and Wastewater Department's operations and the infrastructure investments, like the Bell Canyon intake tower project, that keep the system running. Good water policy starts with good data. Scott's insisting the city have it before it speaks publicly.

Scott is the only person on the dais with an accounting degree and a career built on reading a P&L. He's used that background to go line by line through years of the city's audited General Fund data, tracing disputed numbers back to their source rather than accepting staff or committee summaries at face value.