Public service is not new to newly-elected Turlock Irrigation District Division 4 Director Becky Arellano.
Although she does not represent the Ceres area – David Yonan does – Arellano will be part of a board that makes decisions that affect power and irrigation customers services by TID.
The third-generation farmer represented District 4 on the Turlock City Council from 2019-2020 and before that served as a legislative aide for Congressman George Radanovich, consultant for the Stanislaus County Office of Education and field representative/aide for Stanislaus County Supervisor Nick Blom. She also has experience working as the public affairs manager for the Westlands Water District, the largest agricultural water district in the United States, made up of more than 1,000 square miles of farmland in western Fresno and Kings counties.
When she learned that longtime TID Division 4 Director Rob Santos would not be seeking reelection this year, she decided now was a good time for her to get back into public service and work on helping to secure the area’s most precious resource — water.
“There’s so much that goes on over at TID that nobody knows about that’s good for the community. They’re very innovative and I like that. They have great leadership over there, which I enjoy too,” said Arellano on deciding to run for the Division 4 director seat.
Arellano is the irrigation district’s first female director.
“I think it’s a big step forward, really. All these young girls that think, ‘oh, our Board of Supervisors is all men and there’s never been a woman on the TID Board.’ We need to bridge some gaps…and move things forward. I didn’t go into it thinking that I was going to be the only woman. I walked into [the TID Board chambers] and all the pictures on the wall were of men.
“I think it’s important for girls to get into these types of positions, go into water or hydrology. The STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) world is huge, even in Turlock.”
Arellano has jumped right in to being a TID director and has been visiting different district departments.
“I went to buy electricity with the brokers at 4:30 in morning. They buy electricity from everywhere for the next day. It is such an essential business. I thought the city was an essential business, but TID, their fingers are everywhere…I met with hydrology today and they are creating partnerships with people across the world.”
There are a number of projects coming up for TID, including the Don Pedro life extension project and two new electrical substations going in on the westside of the district. Those projects will be funded in part by new electric rate increases approved by the board in November — before Arellano was sworn into office.
Arellano said she is looking forward to being a part of the future of TID: “I’m excited about the innovation part of moving forward, because I’m a risk taker. I’m more ‘go than whoa.’”
In regards to moving forward, she referenced the recently completed Stanislaus Regional Surface Water Treatment Plant, a partnership between TID and the cities of Ceres and Turlock.
“All these big entities that have come here the past few years — Amazon, SupHerb Farms and Blue Diamond — they’re still going to want to come here because we have a commodity that’s great [water and power]…We just need to make sure that we can move into the 21st century gracefully.”
