Calhouns Can(n)ons

Awww, Gaaawwd, Would Somebody Please, Pluueeeeze Stop Giving The Regional Water Quality Control Board Embarrassing Pills?

So I can’t get away from work in time to see the opening County sewer update presentation before the Regional Board on Friday, but did hear that, as promised, Supervisor Gibson did indeed ask that the Board give consideration to rescinding the CDOs on The Los Osos 45 so as to remove any taint of electioneering and coercion.

By the time I got there, public comment had started and speaker after speaker got up to point out their concern over electioneering and coercion with only some of the community singled out for prosecution while others don’t face that threat. Indeed, one CDO recipient noted that she was forced to vote Yes on the 218 because of that CDO and even used the analogy of having a knife at her throat.

And then CSD Director, Julie Tacker, got up to describe how, in the previous assessment vote, someone had gone in and looked at her ballot (they’re all public documents) and then printed that information in a letter to the editor and she was afraid that the same thing would happen here.

[Trust me, it will. An anonymous poster on this blog has already stated that she/he intends to do just that regarding my vote, while her/his vote remains hidden and unknown. I’m sure other anonymous blog posters will do the same, thinking that such postings will embarrass or injure whoever they wish to “get” in some way.

If the Board wants to see Truly Ugly On A Stick, they only need to read some of the anonymous posters on this and other various blogsites before professing shock that anyone would care who voted which way, and then dismiss a genuine fear many in this community have that will intimidate them into NOT voting at all, thereby tainting the process and calling the vote’s outcome into question.]

In addition, Tacker said she was also concerned that the Board would use those ballots to single out and selectively prosecute people based on their vote, and so she wanted the Board members to give the community assurances that the Board wouldn’t look at those ballots or use them for any kind of selective prosecution.

And then the various board members went to great lengths to explain that they were shocked – SHOCKED – that anyone would think, even for a nanosecond, that they would ever, EVER, use selective enforcement, that their policy is to treat everyone in Los Osos equally and that any enforcement would be placed on everybody equally, totally forgetting that they had already singled out for selective enforcement, The Los Osos 45.

Awwww, Gaawwdd, did these people take Stupid Pills? Do they not listen to what they’re saying? Maybe they’re suffering a weird bout of amnesia, an especially troubling possibility since many of the people making public comment identified themselves as being Selectively Enforced CDO Recipient Number such and such?

So then the Board started huffing and hemming as to how voters should not think for a moment that electioneering was going on or voter coercion since the Board had already indicated that they were not going to take any action on the selectively enforced CDOs already issued, but they would consider maybe setting up an agenda item to discuss maybe officially putting those selectively enforced CDOs on the agenda for a hearing, but because Chairman Young and the board failed to even consider doing that months ago – thereby making sure it was too late to be considered at yesterday’s hearing – a truly careless piece of indifference since yesterday would have been the perfect time for the Board to rescind those selectively enforced CDOs and thereby generate huge headlines just as the 218 ballots were hitting the mailboxes of the residents.

But, noooooo, they couldn’t be bothered. So they futzed around for a while and first thought to agendize the item for their next meeting, which would have been October 19th, totally OBLIVIOUS that the point of rescinding the CDOs was to level the playing field for all voters BEFORE the vote becomes history on October 23 (when the ballots are due) Then they yakked about maybe agendizing it for December, again OBLIVIOUS that the 218 vote would be history come October 23.

In short, they blew any chance to eliminate a possible stumbling block on this vote. That’s how “concerned” they are about leaving the door wide open for potential lawsuits on electioneering and voter coercion. (And remember, a lesson already learned by Los Ososians and apparently completely missed by the Board: You don’t have to win lawsuits, you only have to file them to end up with delays. So, Why would this Board even want to leave so much as a toehold for a possible delay, when they had, at their feet, headlines that money can’t buy, headlines that would have taken a huge gust of wind out of any of the anti-218’s sails? Tin ear? Sheer incompetence? Cluelessness so complete that it doesn’t even come close to the definition of Permanently Out To Lunch? Whaaat?)

But while they were discussing that agenda item, the one to consider rescinding CDO’s even though they had completely blown the point of the item in the first place, Harvey Packard semaphored the board and hopped up to start in, Umm, Uhhh, Awwww, Gaawwwd, if we’re holding public hearings on CDOs, uh, what should we do with the CAOs? And what about all those OLD CDO’s ones given out years ago, does that open the hearing up to those? (Old CDO’s? What are those about? More selective enforcement? ) And what about settlement agreements (oh, like somebody with a settlement agreement is gonna come in and say, OH, NO, don’t remove those $5,000-a- day fines from my property, puullleeze don’t?) and aawww, gawwwd, if it covers all CDOs do we even know how many old cans that’s gonna open up and jeeeezzze gaawwdd, who knows how many worms are going to crawl out, awwwww, uuuhhhh, ummmmm . . . . until a legal beagle piped up that, Naw, it was O.K. to have a hearing but just discuss selective CDO’s, while keeping the others buried, deep, deep, with all the other mismanaged, decades-long bungles that makes anyone watching this Board keep asking, WHO’S GIVING THESE GUYS EMBARRASSING PILLS, ANYWAY?

We are warned that there are two things we should never see being made: sausages and law. To that I would add, Watching the tin-eared, tangle-footed, clueless, embarrassing Regional Water Quality Control Board at work.

Awww, Gaawwwd, indeed.

And Speaking of Embarrassing

Friend called to say , Did I notice that my assessment ballot had two peel’n’stick labels on it and two post-marks and underneath the top peel’n’stick label is a label with somebody else’s name and address but maybe your assessment number on it? She then asked me, Uh, do you know what’s going on here?

Beats me. I tossed the envelopes on the desk and haven’t had a chance to look at them yet.

Paavo?

Also of note:

Harvey Packard, RWQCB staff personage, did note that Mr. Murphy & Mr. Low’s Advanced Environmental Systems, Inc “Reclamator,” (noted in a previous posting) would have their test documents checked and verified, would have their system and proposal included in the CEQA and “due diligence” phase by the County, (if they’re still interested in same) but Packard wanted to let the citizens of Los Osos know that any claims that the AES Reclamator doesn’t produce wastewater are false. Whatever it produces is considered Wastewater, according to Mr. Packard.

Thus we have, as predicted, Dueling Definitions, one of the problems created when the RWQCB came up with their demand for “Zero Discharge” (whatever that means.)

In Closing:

Have a nice weekend. If you have a dog, the El Chorro Regional Park’s Off Leash Dog Park is having their annual Canine Capers, Saturday, Sept 7, from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m, which is a fund-raiser for maintaining the park [full disclosure, I’m on the board of SLO-4-PUPs, the group that created and maintains the dog park, the very first (and best?) one in SLO County, brag, brag.] There’ll be a Canine Good Citizen Test offered, low cost micro-chipping and Rabies shots, demonstration, information booths, games, silly dog tricks, prizes and munchies and fun. So grab your pooch and come out for some non-sewer fun.