Rio Linda Water Board Meeting Gets Heated

RIO LINDA (CBS13) – What started with crude insults led to an aggressive face-to-face confrontation at the last Rio Linda Water District meeting.

It's not a daytime talk show, but Sunday's special meeting of the Rio Linda Water board of directors included two men going nose to nose. And one of the men puffing out his chest is an elected official, water board member Frank Caron.

The video of the confrontation, which was posted on YouTube, has people in the small community saying it feels more like a schoolyard tussle.

"It's a governmental agency, we should be acting professionally," said Mary Henrici, the district's general manager.

Henrici was sitting next to Caron in the video before he got up and confronted the other man. She says the board is plagued with infighting between its members. This blowout happened between Caron and a resident who happens to be the district's former general manager.

"I call it counterproductive," she said.

Late Monday afternoon Caron released a statement that said in part: "[The customer] comes to nearly every board meeting with what I believe is an aggressive attitude. In this instance I was simply asking him a question when he became hostile and started using curse words towards me. In the future I will not allow anyone to bring me to the level of anger [he] did on that evening."

Caron also said he asked the board president to request a sheriff's deputy be at the next meeting.