“The actions taken by the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority and the City of Ridgecrest while sponsoring AB 1413 groundwater legislation in 2025 represent a very serious violation of the public’s trust and rise to the level of a Conspiracy to Commit Fraud. The damages to property owners in California as a result of AB 1413 would rise to the level of billions of dollars.”

October 6th, 2026

Ridgecrest California

Publisher’s Note: When viewing the big picture of California’s water resource management in the context of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, passed in 2014 and signed by then Governor Jerry Brown, an outsider with basic knowledge in real estate and private property water rights might conclude “what the hell were they thinking?”. I’m one of those people, and I’ve been following SGMA since it was passed, not to mention the fact that I have expert-level knowledge about real estate, water rights and private property rights. Over the last 10 years, I’ve evolved into an investigative reporter, a citizen journalist and an “expert” on SGMA.

Damages Caused By SGMA

The damages caused by SGMA are unquantifiable, but two professors at UC Berkeley have calculated that the cost to the agriculture economy will total over $7 billion a year alone, not to mention the loss of 85,000 jobs and the fallowing of over one-fifth of the San Joaquin Valley. None of California’s legislators from the San Joaquin Valley supported this law when it was passed. Small farmers are being decimated, while the surviving corporate farms measure compliance with SGMA as just another expense to be added to your food bill.

In the case of the Indian Wells Valley groundwater basin, the Groundwater Sustainability Plan that was created by the IWV Groundwater Authority in January 2020 and submitted to the Department of Water Resources to be approved a few months later, a number of issues have become apparent. SGMA is a flawed law, it’s a license to commit fraud, the IWV Groundwater Sustainability Plan is itself, a fraud. The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority is a monstrosity.

IRONY: The Chickens are Coming Home to Roost in Ridgecrest California

The chickens are coming home to roost in Ridgecrest, and ironically, the Ridgecrest City Council is planning on addressing chickens with a change to the city’s code. They should be more concerned with an investigation by the Kern County District Attorney. It appears there may be some indictments coming down in the near future. Let’s review what happened last year when AB 1413 was introduced in California’s legislature and why indictments might be handed down in the days ahead.

Who Authored AB 1413? Was it Assembly Member Diane Papan? No.

AB 1413 was part of the 2025–2026 Regular Session and focused on updates to the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).

Two bills were introduced in the 2025 legislative session concerning groundwater. AB 1413 was introduced and sponsored by Assembly Member Diane Papan, and AB 1466 was introduced by Assembly Member Gregg Hart. AB 1466 was passed and signed by Governor Newsom, while AB 1413 passed both the Assembly and the Senate but was rendered to the inactive file at the request of Senator Wahab on September 9th, 2025.

Ridgecrest city council members Scott Hayman and Kyle Blades, along with the city manager Ron Strand, traveled to Sacramento in April 2025 to lobby in support of the legislation which was sponsored and likely written by attorneys at the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority, namely Phill Hall and Keith Lemieux.

Hall was the Kern County Deputy Counsel who rotated with Ridgecrest city attorney Keith Lemieux as co-counsels to the Groundwater Authority. Hayman, Blades and Strand have been accused of violating the Brown Act and misrepresenting that the City of Ridgecrest supported AB 1413.

The first question is, did Assembly member Diane Papan actually author AB 1413? According to the official bill text from LegiScan, Assembly Bill 1413 was introduced by Papan on February 21, 2025. Three days earlier, in an email from Michael W. McKinney to Brady Borcherding, the Deputy Legislative Affairs Secretary in the office of Governor Gavin Newsom, McKinney is looking for a sponsor. McKinney is a lobbyist and agent, “paid by both” the City of Ridgecrest and the Groundwater Authority. In the email he stated that Papan had yet to respond to his request for a sponsor.

Papan was not the author of AB 1413, the legislation had already been written and 10 members of the legislature had previously declined to sponsor the bills.

Video clips below are taken from the June 18, 2025, Ridgecrest City Council meeting and a presentation by Michael W. McKinney of Capitol Core Group

The presentation by McKinney was necessitated after news of the trip to Sacramento by Blades, Hayman and Strand became public. Prior to May 2025, no public meetings were held that would alert the residents of Ridgecrest or the property owners in the Indian Wells Valley that the city allegedly supported the bill, nor did the members of the city council or staff inform them of the impact that AB 1413 would have on their water rights. It was never explained to property owners and valley water users how they would lose their due process rights in comprehensive adjudication should AB 1413 be passed.

At the meeting, Michael McKinney gave a presentation on AB 1413 to the residents of the Indian Wells Valley. Councilman Skip Gorman and IWV Water District President Ron Kacinski both try to get an answer from McKinney on who authored and sponsored the legislation. During follow-up questioning by Ridgecrest resident Chris Ellis, McKinney tells Mr. Ellis that AB 1413 “was essentially drafted by Papan”. Unconfirmed reports tell a different story, that Papan didn’t know what was in the legislation she “drafted” and sponsored.

Did the Ridgecrest City Council ever vote to support AB 1413 and AB 1466? Answer: No, or they would have said so by now.

The video below starts off with City Clerk Ricca Charlon explaining how she forgot to change the name of the mayor of Ridgecrest from Eric Bruen to Travis Endicott on the letterhead of a letter that was hand carried to Sacramento. The letter stated that the City of Ridgecrest supported the legislation. She would have been present in any closed sessions and will have to testify as to whether or not AB 1413 was in fact, approved in a closed session.

During a May 5, 2025 special meeting of the Kern County Board of Supervisors, county supervisor David Couch asks the three representatives from Ridgecrest to approach the podium. Kyle Blades answers Couch and says “correct” when Couch asks whether there was a vote to approve AB 1413 in closed session. Ron Strand approaches the podium and states that the Council never voted to approve AB 1413 in an open session.

This is why the City of Ridgecrest is being investigated for Brown Act violations by the Kern County District Attorney, and possibly Conspiracy to Commit Fraud by the FBI. Conspiracy to Commit Fraud is a federal crime, and Department of Justice attorneys are representing the Navy in the IWV’s comprehensive adjudication trial. The Phase Two “safe yield” portion of the comprehensive adjudication trial, which was scheduled to begin in June of 2026, wouldn’t have happened had AB 1413 passed in 2025.

Video from the May 5, 2025, Kern County Board of Supervisors Special Meeting, Supervisor David Couch Asks Blades, Hayman and Strand to explain.

Below are documents received by a Public Records Act request. The document below contains an email thread and introduction letter written by McKinney along with communications to a number of public officials including Paul Gosselin, the Director of SGMA at the Department of Water Resources, and Phill Hall, the Kern County Deputy Counsel who was acting as counsel for the IWV Groundwater Authority at the time.

So Who Authored AB 1413?

Phill Hall either resigned or was fired from his position as Kern County Deputy Counsel in the months after April of 2025. Was Phill Hall the author of AB 1413? We’ll wait for the Kern County District Attorney to answer the question.

Phillip Hall is now a Partner at Aleshire and Wynder.

Keith Lemieux is the Ridgecrest City Attorney, the current General Counsel for the IWV Groundwater Authority and an Equity Partner at Aleshire and Wynder

Emails and Supporting Information on Comprehensive Adjudication in California’s Civil Code.

The email of interest in answering the question of whether Papan authored the bills was sent by McKinney on Tuesday, February 18, 2025, to Brady Borcherding, the Deputy Legislative Affairs Secretary in the office of Governor Gavin Newsom. The email states that Papan was on a dwindling list of potential sponsors after ten other potential sponsors declined for “different reasons”. From the emails, we see McKinney is shopping for a sponsor and communicating with various public officials trying to find a sponsor. The emails are contained in the documents below.

Brady:
I can share those members who have declined. Each member had a different reason for
declining.
Assembly Member Wilson
Senator Laird
Chair Limon
Senator Stern
Speaker Rivas
Assembly Member Alanis
Senator Cabaldon
Senator Umberg
Senator Grove
Assembly Member Bains
At this time, there is no response from Chair Papan, Senator McNerney, and Assembly Member Addis.

Best, Michael (McKinney)

The following documents also include email communications that show the Department of Water Resources was both aware of the legislation and, according to McKinney, officials at DWR provided suggestions for the wording “short of endorsement”. Officials in the email chain at DWR included Paul Gosselin, the director of SGMA, and Kasey Schimke in the office of Legislative Affairs at DWR.

CASE NOTES:

McKinney also represented that not only did DWR provide suggested changes in the wording of the legislation short of an endorsement, but so did officials at the California State Water Board and attorneys at the Department of Justice. DOJ attorneys represented the Navy at China Lake in the Comprehensive Adjudication lawsuit.

It’s unknown at this time why the DOJ would be suggesting wording in legislation that would severely curtail the due process rights of California’s property owners and farmers. Property owners are the plaintiffs in comprehensive adjudication lawsuits that challenge Government Sustainability Agencies such as the IWV Groundwater Authority. The Navy is an ex-officio member seated on the dais at Groundwater Authority meetings, but the Navy has no voting rights on matters before the Groundwater Authority.

In the case of the IWV groundwater basin, the science that determined the “safe yield” wasn’t the best available science, it was fixed by the Groundwater Authority’s “staff”, and primarily by the author of the Groundwater Sustainability Plan, Steve Johnson, the CEO of Stetson Engineers.

The GA’s sponsorship AB 1413 was essentially an attempt to subvert the due process rights of property owners in the Indian Wells Valley during an ongoing comprehensive adjudication trial. It was an egregious attempt at changing the rules of the ballgame in the middle of the game.

In addition, the only reason that SGMA was able to be passed by the 2014 legislature was because it incorporated the previously tested and accepted California Code concerning the adjudication of water rights in a basin (See below).

AB 1413 would have taken away a key element of the due process rights inherent in SGMA and in California’s Code of Civil Procedure. The California provisions governing comprehensive adjudication of groundwater basins are found in California Code of Civil Procedure §§ 830–850, with § 830 setting out the chapter’s purpose and framework.

The following information was generated using Bing CoPilot:

What CCP § 830 establishes

CCP § 830 is the foundational statute for comprehensive groundwater adjudications. It states that the chapter “establishes methods and procedures for a comprehensive adjudication”.

Key statutory directives include:

• Protecting water rights consistent with Article X, Section 2 of the California Constitution
• Promoting efficiency and reducing delays in groundwater adjudications
• Encouraging compromise and settlement among parties
• Ensuring adjudications are consistent with achieving groundwater sustainability under SGMA timelines
• Providing procedures for courts to determine all rights and priorities to groundwater in a basin
• Ensuring adjudications comply with federal water-rights doctrines, including Winters and the McCarran Amendment
• Allowing courts to determine priority for unexercised water rights while not altering substantive groundwater law except as specified

Scope of adjudication under CCP § 834

CCP § 834 authorizes courts to determine all groundwater rights in a basin, including appropriative, overlying, and other rights, as well as use of storage space..

.A final judgment may specify:

• Priority and amount of each party’s rights
• Purposes and places of use
• Extraction locations
• Storage rights
• Injunctive relief and terms of a physical solution

Additional related provisions

Other sections in the same chapter (CCP §§ 830–850) address:

• Case management requirements (e.g., CCP § 840) 1
• Notice and participation rules (CCP § 836, referenced in DWR materials) 1
• Exemptions for small pumpers (CCP § 833, summarized in California Globe) 1
• Special master appointments, injunctions, and phased trials (CCP §§ 845, 847, 840) 1
• Interaction with SGMA, including coordination with groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs)

Relationship to SGMA

The adjudication statutes were designed to work in parallel with SGMA, not replace it.
The SGMA–adjudication relationship includes:

• Adjudications must not delay GSA formation or GSP development 1.
• A court-approved judgment may substitute for a GSP if it meets SGMA’s sustainability requirements and is approved by DWR
• Courts must ensure adjudications and SGMA processes complement each other (Water Code § 10737.2, referenced in the materials)

Summary

The California code governing comprehensive adjudication of groundwater basins is California Code of Civil Procedure §§ 830–850, with § 830 providing the chapter’s purpose and interpretive principles and § 834 defining the court’s authority to determine groundwater rights.

Supporting Evidence