Gov. Gavin Newsom has appointed two Southland residents to the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, including a former general manager and CEO of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
H. David Nahai, who ran the LADWP from 2007 to 2009, was previously a member of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board from 1997 to 2007.
Nahai, 68, of Los Angeles, was vice president of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Board of Commissioners from 2005 to 2006, and served as its president from 2006 to 2007.
For the past 10 years, he has been president of his own consulting company and a partner at athe law firm Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard and Smith.
Michael Mendez, 43, of Long Beach, has been an assistant professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy at UC Irvine since 2019. He was a faculty fellow and associate research scientist at the Yale School of the Environment from 2016 to 2019 and a postdoctoral scholar and lecturer at the University of San Francisco Department of Environmental Science from 2015 to 2016.
Mendez was legislative director at the University of California Office of the President from 2008 to 2010, senior government affairs advocate at Blue Shield of California from 2006 to 2008, and senior legislative aide to former Democratic Assemblywoman Cindy Montanez from 2003 to 2006.
Both appointments require Senate confirmation, and the compensation is $250 per diem.