"Step Away From The Televison Set, Los Osos. CSD General Manager Bruce Buel has decided You've Seen Enough!"
Uh, oh, remember when the LOCSD voted to pick the next to the last possible date for the recall election and audience members said No! No! schedule the election earlier so the public can weigh in before the CSD starts pounding all their nice tax money into the ground, and the CSD said No! No! we need to give enough time for the community to get "educated" about the issues, and CSD General Manager Buel said it was really, reeeeely important for the community to get "educated" about the issues and a later date would allow for all that "education?"
Well, Los Osos, Mr. Buel has decided you've had enough education so he's pulling the plug on public access Channel 20. Instead of lots of Both Sides yakking away in various forums and/or presenting various "educational" discussions -- Woa, all that education going on! -- Buel has decided to shut it all down and only play miscellaneous government meetings until the election is over.
Why? Because "It is my belief that we have shared enough of both sides of the debate."
There you have it, Los Osos. Your unelected District Manager has decided that You've Had Enough Education! Now, run along Boys & Girls, it's time for your milk and cookies and then -- Yaaaayyy! nap time!
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Calhoun's Can(n)ons was originally published in 1990 in the (now defunct) Morro Bay, CA, Sun Bulletin, and since 1992 has continued in the various resurrections of the Los Osos, CA. Bay News, Bay Breeze, Bay News, Bay News-Tolosa Press. A few years ago, the Can(n)on was added to the Central Coast NewsMission blogsite. Ann Calhoun lives in Los Osos. You can email her at Churadogs at gmail dot com
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Edward R. Murrow
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; the essential is invisible to the eye.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Little Prince
No one is exempt from talking nonsense; the misfortune is to do it solemnly.
Montaigne
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7 comments:
You've got to be kidding.
Infomercials by the two warring parties are educational?? What planet did you come from? All of those 'forums' are political, and should not be on a district channel. Certainly nothing from a lawyer who sues the district and loses every time. There's a reason lawsuits fail - it's because the contentions they make are wrong.
Games of 20 questions work well a breadbox, but their also the oldest trick in the book for stalling. Ann, thank god you weren't in the Bay area when the Golden Gate Bridge was proposed, you'd still be questioning whether it should be routed 500 yards to the east and mitigation of liquefaction on foundations for it.
You know what's a lawsuit that won't fail... and it's just a matter of time before it shows up in the CSD P.O. Box?
The one where a vacant lot owner, that's right, ONE vacant lot owner, gets wind that, due to all kinds of water issues, they will not be hooking up to the sewer in the foreseeable future, and they start scratching their head and ask, "Then why am I paying this tax?"
Taxation without benefit.
Methinks, that whoever picks up the mail for the CSD, before the turn the key on the P.O. Box, prays that there isn't a challenge from a vacant lot owner. They would win that -- slam dunk.
And when they do win that -- and they will, it's just a matter of time -- ALL vacant lot owners will be excempt from paying the assessment, and that share of the cost will go to everyone else.
Can't ya just see it... pitchforks and torches at the steps of the CSD office.
Spooky.
oh brother,
another legal eagle.
Without this treatment plant, vacant property owners have NO PATH towards development. With the plant, they at least have a path, and the restrictions on them would be just the same with an out of town plant, only they'll be 5 more years out.
Dude, they don't get assessed until they connect. Believe me, they will gladly pay $40k to $60k for the connection fee, and water surcharges, and coastal mitigation to finally put a house on a lot.
And there is incentive for everyone else to have them develop the lots (so long as they pay the extra water costs)in order to bring down the share of the capital costs.
Pass the Crack Pipe, please. That must be some really good stuff.
Remember when the community was told, Let's all support this plan so that once it gets built and goes on line everyone with vacant lots can start building their dream homes and people used to come to CSD meetings and plead, please, please let's build this plant so I can build my dream home and then those will-not-serve-oops-My Bad letters went out and the Cleath & Assoc water report showed up and said that the sewer plant wouldn't "cure" the salt water intrusion and we'd still be in overdraft and then it began dawning on people, Uh-oh, think maybe I've been bamboozled since getting this plant on line won't allow me to build my dream home and everyone was told to support this project and told it would "only" cost such and such and then it became clear that there were going to be a whole bunch of "deferred" things, like imported water and sludge removal and possible increased land acquisition for additional Broderson leach fields and nobody knew or would say what those additional costs would be and then people started wondering What the hell do they mean it'll "only" cost such and such when they're leaving out all this other stuff?
Kinda DOES make you want to reach for the crack pipe, doesn't it?
No, I don't remember the community being told that about vacant lots. But I would not dispute it.
Those statements were made out of ignorance, obviously. Before there was a water report, that neither the County nor the CSD made in advance of a design of a treatment plant.
The fact is, the plant and the water issue are related, but the issue for water for vacant property owners is a hurdle regardless of whether a plant gets built in town or out of town. The sooner they get a plant, the sooner they can develop. To think otherwise is grossly naieve.
The decision to stop the plant today is in itself a deferral of costs where the impacts of not starting compound themselves. The impacts are inflation, pollution, salt water intrusion impacts, financing costs, etc. etc. It is true the project does not completely stop salt water usion, but it does reduce the impact.
Again, the community is being told a whole bunch of bits and pieces of an alternate plan, and when you add them up together for the so-called immaculate solution, the reality is it will take 6-7 years where the impacts listed above make the choice to stop the project one of immense risk.
The statement about the increased land acquistion that you make is not substantiated - it is not supported by reputable GEOLOGIST reports.
Maybe a peace pipe would work better than a crack pipe.
Public works: in "increased land acquisition" for the Broderson disposal site was discussed by Mr. Harris several times during his two presentations of the Water Report.
One of the critical, for me, comments I wrote in a column on the water report is this: You can get nitrates out of water but you can't get more water out of NO water. Any plan that does not look at water first is a piece meal plan (which the CSD plan is) and all the deferred costs have been shoved under the carpet. If people are blanching at the present cost, they'd better hold onto their hats.
And as for vacant lots being built when the sewer comes on line -- that notion was put out there repeatedly, until it became clear that it was false. According, again, to that Nice Mr. Harris of Cleath & Assoc, the sewer plant "will not cure" salt water intrusion. It also won't stop us being in overdraft (we still don't have any mandatory low-flow program in place) & etc. And any hope of getting the recycled water down to the lower aquifer is years and years away. In short, the CSD's plan is all piecemeal and its shortsightedness, I will predict, is gonna cost this community big time.
If the citizens don't have a problem with that, then they'll vote for this project. If they do have a problem with all of this, they'll vote against the project and go work on something that looks farther out in time. Either way, we'll know in a few hours what Los Osos wants to do.
Ann,
You claim the CSD plans aren't going to tackle saltwater intrusion or the supply-demand imbalance.
What is the plan of the recall candidates that will solve these issues? State water? Ag Exchange? If Ag Exchange, what about the fact that we will be depeleting that aquifer? What about the fact that the fancy ponding system won't necessarily reduce nitrates in the Ag aquifers?
As before ... and let me repeat this slowly so that you get it ... just because the CSD has made what you consider mistakes in the past doesn't mean that the recall candidates have a well thought out plan that will cost us less.
As you refuse to tackle this issue, our discussion on this topic may be done.
I just don't see a new group of hopeful newbies as being better able to run the CSD than the current group with considerable experience at dealing with the various levels of state government. To argue that becuase they didn't do everything right in the past (due to inexperience) means that we should vote in a new group of inexperienced people is simply silly.
Like you point out, we'll know in a few hours and like I said before ... if the recall goes through, I certainly hope you are right but if I am right, I certainly hope that the recall fails.
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