Calhouns Can(n)ons

I’m Late, I’m Late, for a Very Important Date, Can’t Wait, Hurry, Hurry, Hurry! More Tea! More Tea! Move Down! Move Down!

Just got conformation from our new Public Information Officer (LOCSD's PIO), Mike Drake, that the 60-some huge eucalyptus trees located on the Tri-W site in Los Osos, the planned new home of an industrial-sized sewage treatment plant in the middle of town, are officially slated to be cut down “sometime next week,” i.e. the 29 – 3rd, one month before the Sept. 27th recall election.

And if the recall is successful and the industrial-sized sewage treatment plant in the middle of town is moved out of the middle of town, what about the dead trees? Well, as Drake noted in the Bay News, “. . . they [can] be replaced by seedlings of native species.”

Well, sure! And in 80 years they might be as tall as the now destroyed eucalyptus, so not to worry.

Board member Tacker requested CSD President Stan Gustafson (he’s on the recall list) to please call a special meeting to hear public input regarding the rush to whack the trees down. Nope. Nuh-uh. No meetings. Not interested in public opinion. As for phone calls, faxes, emails to the CSD office? Fuggedaboudit. Not interested.

On an even funnier note, Sewer Chronicler Extraordinare, Ron Crawford (his sewer blog can be accessed via http://www.slocreek.com/) (and Sewerwatch blog --ed.) notes that the CSD (or elves creeping into the office in the dead of night?) keeps putting false and misleading information into official documents. For example, a recent email with a portion of the recent CSD’sValue Engineering report imbedded in it, clearly notes that the various “amenities (public restroom, parking lot, tot lot, amphitheatre, community garden) added by the CCC [California Coastal Commission] . . . . "

. . . . ADDED by the CCC? The CCC didn’t add those things. They originally demanded that they be removed by the CSD in order to shrink the footprint of the sewer treatment plant on ESHA land and the CSD – NOT the CCC – insisted that they be put back in as a critical component of the project, i.e., the much ballyhooed community-wide demand for a Tot Lot next to a sewer plant.

The CCC fell for it and put the Tot Lot & etc. back in, but it was not at the CCC’s request. Yet there it is in the recent Value Engineering report. Yep, elves.

Ron argues in an email to various officials in charge of this project, that the State Revolving Fund forbids spending any State Revolving Fund Money on “decorative elements,” i.e. things not mandated by State and/or Federal agencies, and notes correctly that the CCC didn’t mandate those decorative elements--the Tot Lot and community garden & etc. were not part of the mandated ESHA mitigation requirements--indeed, they are contraindicated as ESHA mitigation since they eat up more ESHA land, not less, and require MORE mitigation.

But, no matter, because if the CSD can “pretend” they are mitigation, then the folks in the prohibition zone can be stuck with paying for them while everyone involved pretends that a Tot Lot and a community garden are an essential requirement in running a sewer plant.

Bwa-hahahahah!

The staff of the CCC must know they’ve been diddled. Certainly at least one CCC Board member knew (he of the “bait and switchy” comment), but they did and still do nothing. Shrug. Oh, well, not my problem. More tea! More tea! Move down! Move down!