Last Sunday, 60 Minutes revealed a chilling new tactic being used to intimidate federal judges: pizza doxxing. California through SB1417, is about to write that tactic into state law aimed at community volunteer water board members.
Strangers order unsolicited pizzas to judges’ homes — addressed to Daniel Anderl, the son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, murdered at their front door in 2020 by a gunman targeting her family.
The message is unmistakable: “We know where you live.”
We represent 600+ small non-profit community water systems across California — volunteer-governed, built by neighbors to serve neighbors.
This is not only a story about federal courts. It is a warning about what happens when personal information becomes a weapon against people who make necessary but unpopular decisions. California is about to write that weapon into state law.
SB 1417 (Pérez) creates a statutory doxxing framework targeting volunteer water board members of mutual water companies which operate as non-profit neighborhood utility co-ops. — these are not measures of transparency, they are two provisions, two threats.
One forces disclosure of every shareholder’s personal contact information to long list of “eligible parties” who ask (amends Corporations Code §14307). The other requires that board members who propose a rate increase above 20% be identified by name — broadcast to shareholders, newspapers, and radio stations — before a single public hearing is held (proposed section code §14303.5).
No protections for how the lists can be used or penalties for abuse.
Ron Zayas, whose firm scrubs judges’ data off the internet, told 60 Minutes: “The threats used to be, ‘I want to kill you.’ Now it’s: ‘I want to influence what you do.”
That is the environment SB 1417 creates for California’s mutual water company board volunteers. If it can happen to judges and be legalized to intimidate the volunteer board members of the smallest water systems, it can happen anywhere and against any type of board, commission, council member.
California State Senators: PLEASE VOTE NO on SB 1417.
California’s mutual water company boards are filled with people who knew what they were signing up for.
Neighbor blame when rates go up. Evenings and weekends on work nobody notices until something breaks.
They served anyway. Because someone has to.
SB 1417 tells those people: your willingness to serve now comes with a price we are writing into law.
Schedule a rate hearing and your name — home address and more — goes into public notices accessible to anyone with an agenda, including people your utility doesn’t even serve.
The 60 Minutes report showed what exposure does.
Threats against federal judges are up 78% in four years — 564 documented last fiscal year. And those are people with U.S. Marshals protection.
Volunteer water board members have none of that.
Many residents will simply choose not to serve. When they leave, small nonprofit water companies lose local leadership built over decades — and consolidation advocates are waiting to fill that vacuum – unfairly through intimidation.
Former FBI agent Mike Clark said it plainly: “These actions are more than pranks. They’re dangerous provocations that mock the rule of law.”
SB 1417 is not a prank. It is a bill. And it doesn’t go away on its own.
Volunteer directors and federal judges are the bookends. Between them sits every local official who makes decisions that affect people’s lives. None of them are out of reach for the tools of intimidation.
We are the canaries.
This starts with mutual water companies. It won’t end there.
File your opposition. Call your Senator before the floor vote.
Everything you need → https://smallwatersystemwarriors.com
The volunteers who keep your water running showed up for you. Time to show up for them.