It was bass that brought Ray Tetrault to Discovery Bay a decade ago. And it was bass and the community that made him stay.

"I was really into fishing and I came up here from San Jose frequently. One day in San Jose, I called my wife and said, 'Let's look at Discovery Bay.' We found a house that day and she loved it," said Tetrault, a candidate for a third term on the Discovery Bay Community Services District's Board of Directors.

It wasn't hard for the former Silicon Valley worker to go to work in Discovery Bay, unlike so many of his commuting neighbors. "I have a computer repair business and I also work as an investigator for my wife's law firm," he said.

Tetrault was appointed in 1999 to fill a vacancy. Since then, he has been an officer all but one year. "I'm now treasurer for the third time," he said.

"I'm very involved in the town and I actually enjoy it. I feel like I have a lot of knowledge about Discovery Bay. It takes a while to get up to speed on water and sewer issues, which is mostly what we are," he said.

Discovery Bay is growing. "There are going to be changes. The board has to be able to make the right decisions regarding developers. Hopefully we will make sure we get the right kind of development that will mesh well with the community. The board always has tried not to have high-density housing and to get new development that is compatible with what we have," he said.

Tetrault said he looks forward to the day when the district can assume more of the services provided by the county. "As a Community Services District, we can do anything a city can except land use (zoning, planning, permitting construction). But all that takes taxes and we're sensitive to that. One area I'm working on is getting extra police protection possibly by getting a tax passed. I'm the board's liaison with a committee of community and business leaders Sheriff (Warren Rupf) has put together."

Alluding to a previous rift between the district board and the sheriff's department, Tetrault said, "my goal was to get the sheriff's department to come back to our meetings, and it does."

Discovery Bay should not merge with the Byron Sanitary District, Tetrault argues.

"I was the driving force on the board not to do that. It was my opinion and still is that it wasn't in the best interest of Discovery Bay. They (Byron) didn't bring anything to us. If we are going to take that liability on, then we should get something. But that's not an issue any more. Byron is going to do its own thing and refurnish its plant."

"I wasn't elected to care about Byron. I was elected to look out for Discovery Bay. If we took over that (Byron's) plant and infrastructure, all of a sudden we would be liable for a lot of maintenance issues that would need to be addressed. And I don't want the voters in Discovery Bay to pay for that," he said.