Harvey and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Well, yesterday's Regional Water Control Board mini-hearing didn't go too well for staff CAO, Harvey Packard.  Agenda #14 was supposedly about asking the Board to remove the useless, stupid, horrible, pointless, no good CDOs from The Los Osos 45.  And, as the truth of the matter slowly spilled out, it turns out that it was several new Board members who had asked for an update and status review on the matter.  But instead of making that clear in an official, formal, complete notification to all the 45, Harvey was forced to fess up that he didn't do that.  Instead, he just sorta blew the whole thing off and instead casually asked CDO-holder, Bill Moylan, if he (Bill) could contact some of his fellow 45ers and see if they'd like to send in comments. 

It soon became clear that for Harvey, this Board request was just like, Oh, Whatever. And his lackadaisical approach left the Moylans with the clear idea that the whole thing was Harvey's idea.  Even his final staff report made no mention as to the source of this agenda item.  So it was a shock when he came back with his lame, ludicrous reasons for disapproving what clearly appeared to be his own request in order to keep the CDO's in place.

Naturally, once Harvey's muddling of this issue unwound at the hearing, I do not think the Board was amused. But, wait, it got worse.  Supervisor Bruce Gibson showed up to again request that the CDOs be removed and noted that if the Board was worried about compliance, the County has an ordinance in place that mandates --  with both civil and potentially criminal penalties  -- that homeowners hook up when the sewer goes on line.

Then Harvey was asked by a new Board member, whether he was familiar with the ordinance.  No, apparently Harvey had to admit he was unaware of its existence.  Then, to make matters worse, the new Board asked Harvey what other regulatory/legal/procedural methods were available to him (and/or the Board) to ensure compliance.  And CAO Harvey hemmed and hawed and had to admit he wasn't sure, possibly something could be done by the Attorney General, maybe, or he didn't know.  

All of which made clear what/who the problem with the RWQCB has always been:  A Board and staff  too often unprepared, uncaring, sloppy, incompetent, indifferent, heedless of consequences, or in the  words of  former staff member, Matt Thompson, uttered at Roger Brigg' insane Mad Hatter Tea Party Trial and Torquemada's Auto de Fe Extravaganza, that I guess we didn't think things through . . . .

(And, to be fair, a staff  often undertrained, overworked, understaffed,  and a Board burdened with enough technical reading material to digest and rule on that would choke an elephant. And, I need add,  "rule on" complex issues too often outside their area of expertise. Since these same people have the power and ability to ruin lives and injure communities, the disconnect between competence and overburden is a chronic, systemic problem and what can make regulators, without a good system of checks and balances, so dangerous.)      

Well the upshot of all this was that  Dr. Monica Hunter (who is now free to participate fully since the reason for her recusal as a Los Osos resident has been removed), sternly schooled Harvey for how he was to proceed when this issue again comes before the Board in September:  He is to formally, officially notify ALL the CDO recipients with full information notifying them of the hearing. None of this slipshod, whatever.  

So, no, not a good day for Harvey.  BUT, I think it may well have been a very good day for The Los Osos 45.  The new Board members were clearly uneasy about those CDOs, saw no point in them, expressed discomfort about the sheer unfairness of them.  (Former Chairman Young, who deserved to have a paper bag put on his head while this item was being discussed, wisely kept his mouth shut. He's smart enough to know you can't defend the indefensible, and the looney Mad Hatter Trial over which he presided had jumped the shark so far there was no hope of ever recovering.)

And so the consensus of the Board was to try to set up two-step hearings on the same September day.  The first item would be an informational hearing as to exactly what enforcement mechanisms are available to the Board.  (The Board is fearful that if they free the 45 that somehow they'll be helpless to do anything to anybody in the PZ ever again.  It's an example of a Board that still hasn't thought things through.) Then the second agenda item will be an action item: Discussion, public testimony, then a vote on whether or not to stop this nonsense and free The Los Osos 45.

Meantime, the Board will write a MOU to the 45 excusing their August requirement of tank pumping, a burden that pointlessly blows $600+ out of their budgets,  a  burden only The 45, out of the whole community, have to bear.

So, good news?  For the community, maybe.  As Supervisor Gibson noted, in making the case for stopping this insanity, the inherent unfairness  of the continued Board refusal to remove those CDOs is still an impediment to finally bringing the community together.

Indeed.  And that's because the CDOs remain a painful symbolic reminder of the basic injustice meted out to those 45 citizens who were stupidly, unfairly, pointlessly, sadistically hung out to dry. And left there to swing in the wind for years while everyone else in the community went on their merry way.

 

Trollosphere?

That's what Tribune columnist Bob Cuddy called the Board of Supervisor meetings -- Trollosphere, "that shadowy online world where sad, twisted losers project the frustrations of their failed lives onto normal people by insulting them viciously in comment sections on the Internet."

Bob forgot to note that in real Troll-World, the sad, twisted losers are almost always "anonymous," whereas the people who earned Bob's ire were standing at the BOS podium during Public Comment and had identified themselves.  And while their Trollish comments aren't being broadcast via radio, their faces are on camera for online streaming of the meetings.  So, hardly "anonymous."

But, yes, according to Bob's March 24th column,"Supervisors beset with a toxic air"
( http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2013/02/23/2404474/toxic-mix-at-the-board-of-supervisors.html  )  the Board is now further mired into a deeper mud puddle, so it's become the gift that keeps on giving; to board watchers and columnists, at least.

Underlying the grumbling ill-will is, of course, the remnants of the Hideous Sewer Wars.  Over that we added the often  ridiculous spectacle of Adam Hill and his intemperate temper issues,  followed by Bruce Gibson's, uh,  lady-friend debacle, followed by the election of Debbie Arnold who waltzed in to immediately challenge the Old Gentleman's Club of too cozy logrolling committeeship/chair appointments.  Which got the old boys huffing like Senator Cleghorn Foghorn --"Now, now,  li'l Lady, I suggest ya'all are new here so ah think y'all need to take a seat ovah there an' keep quiet 'till y'all can learn how we'all do thangs in this heah chamber." 

Which surely didn't endeared the Board to Ms. Arnold or Ms. Arnold to the Board. Cuddy thinks that there's "a lot of blame to go around.  Gibson's behavior and Adam Hill's sharp tongue are factors. But a significant cause of the venom is clearly the behavior of Arnold and the enraged people who back her."  Cuddy also adds, "The Arnold crowd has significant policy difference with Gibson, Hill and more regulation-oriented board members and staff." 

Which raises an immediate question:  What evidence does Cuddy offer that Arnold's backers (who have significant policy differences) are "enraged?" I couldn't find any in his column; perhaps that will be forthcoming.

Meanwhile, what seemed to get Cuddy's goat about last Tuesday's meeting was two-fold: Tom Salmon, who has demonstrated intemperate temperament issues of his own, got up during public comment and  referred to Gibson's girlfriend/aide as a "whore" and a "prostitute," and Chairman Teixeira tried to shush Salmon (good luck with that) which prompted several Los Ososian Sewerites into hollering about free speech during Public Comment.  Sigh.

After which, Cuddy reports, Debbie Arnold thanked Salmon for his comments, "assuring him that each of the five supervisory offices is autonomous and that the inhabitants therein conduct themselves differently," thereby attempting to pull her skirt hems away from the Gibson mud pile.  While everyone else sat on their hands wishing Gibson into the corn field and, I'm guessing, rolling their eyes like trapped feral cats.

Well, what else can anyone expect?  Those three minutes of public comment have always been often dangerous [but powerfully protected]  I.E.Ds. in the hands of the crazy, the disgruntled, the bone-pickers, the furious, the righteous and the concerned.  And the power of that I.E.D. is fueled by divisive issues and/or disgraceful behavior by those in power.  In this case, the burr under the public's saddle is Supervisor Gibson' bad behavior which was followed by his successfully gaming the system to suit his needs -- the public (and his fellow Supervisors) be damned.  There's nothing like it for fueling fury and for creating chronically hostile Board meetings, since the burr remains firmly under the saddle and fellow Supervisors are stuck with keeping silent, (and incurring public criticism for that silence) or speaking out (and having Bob Cuddy accuse them of  "poking a finger in [a fellow board members's] eye). 

Truly a disagreeable set of Hobson's Choices, all of which turns the BOS into TrollVille. And The Gibson Problem will remain in place until he and/or his girlfriend/aide resign, which will happen when pigs fly.  One thing for sure is this: Both Adam Hill and Bruce Gibson have publicly demonstrated they are not in control of themselves, are blind to the iron Rule of Caesar's Wife that comes with public office, and, as a result, have showed extremely  poor judgement. If past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior, I think the public has a perfect right to consider, question, reference past behavior whenever a supervisor is considering and/or voting on some complex, contentious issue that requires good judgement, since that vote (and that judgement) will affect the public.  

Meantime, our BOS is in for some lively times.  Especially with the new so-called "enraged" Arnold crowd . . . whoever those people might be . . . joining the usual suspects. . Keep your seat belts fastened.

Really? Bruce, too?

Oh Lord, it must be something in the water.  General Pretaeus all over the news for committing adultery and now our very own 2nd District County Supervisor, Bruce Gibson, turned out to be another middle-aged egotistical fool who carried on a secret affair with a woman who was not his wife, but was his legislative aide, a woman he interviewed and then hired and then slept with for a good long while, and when the secret was about to get out, he finally got around to telling his wife, then went public to claim it was all a matter of the heart and claim, with that typical smothering Gibsonian cascade of oleoagineous words, that he was chagrined most of all by the “breach of trust that [he] caused to occur with my constituents,”  and because this “relationship and my concealment of it will cause people to question my integrity.”

Bruce Gibson’s constituents trust him and believe he has integrity?  Really?

In General Pretaeus’ case, he least had the integrity to resign, but in Gibson’s case, the poor voters have no such luck.  Instead, the County went into a well practiced CYA dance.  Staff spent gazillions of tax-payer-financed hours combing through all of Gibson and Ms.Cherie Aispuro’s emails and travel vouchers to see if they could glean anything that might stick them with a sexual harassment lawsuit.  And then, because the county doesn’t have a written policy prohibiting such boss/employee canoodling, instead of firing Ms. Aispuro for Walking while Stupid (sleeping with your boss and thereby creating a “hostile workplace"), it raced to make sure Ms. Aispuro was given another job in another department at her nice cushy $68,890 salary, again to ward off any possible later lawsuits by Ms. Aispuro who might decide that while Gibson remained untouched in the Cat Bird Seat (no paper bag over the head for him! He's likely getting himself groomed for a run at higher office!), she had just been given the bum’s rush, and now that her reputation and career are permanently in the toilet, she might decide to Call Her Lawyer.
 
Well, in this county, that’s how it’s done.

As for Gibson, he’ll remain in office, and no doubt spend his last two years boring everyone to death with self-justification whining or slip into his endless stem-winding, Explain-It-All-For-You  Supervisorial from-the- dais lecture a constant stream of defensive references to how much integrity he has, thereby causing everyone within the sound of his voice to roll their eyes and mumble, “Sure,sure, Bruce, sure, whatever you say.”

But the evidence speaks for itself.  Like all Pols, Bruce has been betraying one group of constituents or another from the day he took office -- promise X, deliver Y, then defensively deny or weasle away from the cold-blooded pre-planned switch. The fact that this comes far too easily to Bruce speaks directly to both character and integrity. 

And, as for matters of the heart, a man of integrity cleans up his messy love life before embarking on an affair of the heart .  A man with no integrity double-deals as long as he can get away with it, and only when discovery is nigh does he cover his egotistical, lying ass by exposing his mistress to scorn and hanging his wife out to dry.

Then goes to the local newspaper to speak of “integrity” and “trust.”