Calhouns Can(n)ons

Saturday, December 10, 2005

Oh, and did I forget to mention . . . .?

Then there's this morning's Tribune headlines, "Water board didn't intend to negotiate, records show."

Gosh, how shocked are we at that? Seems that the Tribune requested and got all kinds of emails and documents sent among various State Water Board staff and board members and we're shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that Sam Blakeslee was sent on a fool's errand along with Darrin Polhemus from the SWB. There were no "negotiations."

Ha-ha-ha, said the State Water Board's Executive Director Celeste Cantu, who must have been snickering up her sleeve when she wrote that "Darrin did a very good job, bringing the CSD closer to reality." Oooo, Wrong. Dead wrong, Ms. Cantu. Darrin's spending a week doing whatever those folks were doing in that room, -- playing Monopoly? -- took the CSD further away from "reality."

Even sillier is the State Water Board's media-guy, Bill Rukeyser now saying that the heading of the letter signed by Ms. Cantu -- "Agreement for Structured Negotiations" -- didn't mean anything. The wording was just "bureaucratic convention."

You know, just like --"agreement" or "structured" or "binding arbitration," or "abide by" -- and all those other annoying, meaningless words that often appear in legal contracts. Oh, wait, silly me. I forgot. The word "legal" is also another one of those little "bureauctatic conventions" that can be ignored when convenient.

On the up-side, these documents, beside showing the arrogance and ethical bankruptcy of the the SWB and staff, should be a wonderful wake-up call to any governmental agency in the State of California who is or is thinking about doing business of any kind with the State Water Board.

Before you sign anything that looks even vaguely "legal," you'd better hire former President Clinton to parse just what the SWB means by "is." And, of course, the word "negotiate."

Forget about trying to parse the meaning of the word "in good faith." Nobody should ever again be fool enough to associate that word with the State Water Board.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...: >>On the up-side, these documents, beside showing the arrogance and ethical bankruptcy of the the SWB and staff, should be a wonderful wake-up call to any governmental agency in the State of California who is or is thinking about doing business of any kind with the State Water Board.<<
You are the best.; 12:43 PM, December 10, 2005
Anonymous said...: Hi Ann - I'm wondering what you think about the letter to the Los Osos CSD that has been posted on the Waterboards website. I find it interesting that they refer to one group of organizations (those who want TriW to continue) as "the environmental community."; 5:51 PM, December 11, 2005
Anonymous said...: Also note that Gordon Hensley's group is among those who endorsed this letter. And that he had communications with the boards - cozy stuff like emails - in recent times. Rats everywhere!!! What are we po folk to do?; 5:54 PM, December 11, 2005
Churadogs said...: Yep, cozy, cozy. To play the Devil's Advocate, it's a rule of thumb that Incumbents (Elected Boards, appointed officials, etc) are always PRESUMED to be "legitimate," while those outside the status quo are suspect. You see this all time time. Coastal Commissioners, for example, automatically assumed that the the CSD and their representatives were telling the truth while "citizens" with other information, information that may have contradicted what the CSD said, are presumed to be cranks with rocks in their heads. That's just the nature of the beast.

And if you're an elected official who's also lobbying for your Board's point of view, and you get yourself well known personally to Board members, well, that's the name of the game. They will presume that you are legitmate and will tend to listen to your viewpoint as legitimate, rather than that awful, unwashed, looney-tune "public" out there making ugly crowd noises in the lobby.

Human nature, the nature of Boards, the nature of Judges, the way of the world.

.; 7:40 AM, December 12, 2005
Shark Inlet said...: Ann,

I just re-read your comments and want to raise the issue of "good faith" again. It seems that the state had an ulterior motive for sending Darrin to talk with Lisa and Dan. (Interestingly enough, it does seem that at least for a while, they were willing to listen to his POV but they do seem to have backpeddled quite a bit. No surprise, I think they feel somewhat jerked around.)

Now back to my main point ... if the LOCSD was negotiating with the state and was willing accept their deal (which included a requirement that the CSD fight Measure B in court), why was the CSD also in negotiations with Al and CASE at the same time, agreeing to drop a suit challenging Measure B? Why did the request for dismissal have a signature date (by John McClendon) of "Nov 1" on it? The way I figure it, there is no way he would sign the document unless the board had already agreed to the action ... and the only time the board met in closed session before Nov 1 was before the CSD agreed to what they claim was the state's 1st "best and last" offer. Hmmm. If the CSD wants to play a game of "who signed what document when", I think they should get their own stuff in order first. Right now it looks like the board was trying to court both CASE and the SWRCB at the same time. Good faith? My ass!; 8:14 AM, December 12, 2005
Anonymous said...: Seems to me like the LOCSD was just doing what everyone else does when trying to "win". No one is without blame here. Those of us who agree with Ann are just sticking up for the little guys - those with no power or control over the system.; 2:03 PM, December 12, 2005
Anonymous said...: Here's a good one...The "proposal" that came out of the week long "negotiations" was said to be amatuer, incomplete, defies logic, etc. by Celeste Cantu. That document was drafted by Darrin Polhemus! Blakeslee's assistant testified to that at the RWQCB hearing! Talk about lame! Those people at the state board make me sick they are so corrupt.; 3:02 PM, December 12, 2005
Shark Inlet said...: Um... Sam's assistant testified that Darrin drafted the portion of the preamble that says "Los Osos admits that any agreement with the SWRCB in no way preculudes any fines from the RWQCB."

Even if it was Darrin who wrote down the basic ideas in the 9 points, it is the job of the CSD and their counsel to get the details right when they take their offer to Sacramento.

Suppose someone hands you some of their thoughts penciled out on the back of an envelope and says "type this up and make it look good", do you leave in the incomplete sentences and spelling errors?

The problem wasn't the points themselves, it was they way they were were written up.

I rather doubt that Darrin or others at the SWRCB are corrupt. Just because they are not deciding things the way you would like them to doesn't mean they are corrupt. If you can offer some evidence of corruption, we're all ears, but there is more evidence of corruption by CSD boardmembers (both pre- and post-election) than on the part of state level water people.; 4:08 PM, December 12, 2005
Anonymous said...: You're no fun.; 4:45 PM, December 12, 2005
Anonymous said...: My most estemable and anti e-coli, Sharkey, I dont think any of those listed were "corrupt".
Politicaly inept, incompetant, misled.

I think thats more accurate.Mike Green; 6:27 PM, December 12, 2005
Churadogs said...: Inlet asks for evidence that the SWB is "corrupt." Then declares that the CSD is corrupt. But I don't see him offering any evidence of that corruption?

As for Inlet's statement that the SWB is feeling like they were "somewhat jerked around." Oh, gosh, that's rich. Sending someone into town with a letter headed up with the words "structered negotiations" and keeping the guy in a room for a week (playing Monopoly? What?) then later claiming "We don't know nuttin 'bout no "negotiations." Uh, I think you've got the jerkers and jerkees mixed up.; 8:58 AM, December 13, 2005
Shark Inlet said...: Ann,

I am sometimes guilty of reading far too quickly and jumping to conclusions. Perhaps you should re-read my latest comment.

I did not say that the CSD is corrupt, just that there appears to be far more evidence of corruption in the CSD. Just ask your friend Ron about whether the previous board was corrupt ... or Joyce if the current board is corrupt. Both will give you long lists. No one can show comparable evidence of corruption by the SWRCB or their staff.

As to your compalints that the "negotiations" weren't negotiations ... you are right. The meetings between Darrin and the LOCSD were an attempt to figure out what, if anything, could be done to move forward. It seems that Darrin had made some progress with Lisa and Dan (as evidenced by their admission that a step-steg collection system wouldn't really save money in the long run and their stated willingness to build at TriW should they not be able to pull off a miracle within two years) but they immediately turned around and lied to us about what Darrin said. They told us that Darrin agreed that we could save money by building out of town. Darrin denies this.

Put yourself in his position. You take a considerable amount of time and work with some people to come up with a possibly workable plan then they go to the press and lie about what you said. I would suggest that unless Darrin lied at the RWQCB hearings, he was the only person on the SWRCB staff who would have argued for the deal. Lisa went and shot herself in the foot with this one.

Besides, the "deal" was pretty much dead without some sort of bond to cover the state's financial position until the 218 vote could occur. There is no way the state would continue loaning money out to our CSD unless they have promises of getting paid back ... which we had not provided.

You see it one way, I see it another way. You seem to think that the state has an obligation to pay for the plant the way Los Osos wants to design it ... even if we change our minds several times and take several years to accomplish the goal. I think that this CSD has taken actions which have caused the SWRCB to feel nervous about lending us money and they wanted to make sure everything would work out okay. When the CSD continued their pattern of not doing the right thing, the state said "if you don't want the money that is your choice."

So, here's my question for you, Ann? Do you see this CSD board as bearing any of the responsibility for any of the things that are occuring? Your articles and comments make me think that you want to blame everyone but them for what has happened. If the state and regional water boards, along with their staff are really the jerks you paint them to be, wouldn't it have been wise for the CSD to take more careful actions to avoid their wrath?

I continue to suggest that if this CSD had told the SWRCB staff, the day after they were sworn in, that they were going to fight Measure B but that they had to re-order some of the tasks to avoid breaking "the law" until "the law" was verified or overturned ... the SWRCB wouldn't have cut off funding at all. Then, if the aspects of Measure B that forced the plant out of town (the "not near a park" portion) was upheld as binding, this CSD could have had a sit down with the SWRCB staff and strategiezed about how to best procede, giving the SWRCB staff an opportunity to "buy in". As it was, this CSD acted as if the recently voted on, but not yet carefully studied Measure B was more binding on their actions than the state laws or the SRF contract.

Hubris.

Here's another question ... if this thing is ever actually built and the ultimate bills are, say, $300/month or higher, will it have been worth it? How much is it worth to have a plant out of town? $500/month? $100/month? More?; 10:10 AM, December 13, 2005
Anonymous said...: Sharkey, I'm confused as usual, "As to your compalints that the "negotiations" weren't negotiations ... you are right. The meetings between Darrin and the LOCSD were an attempt to figure out what, if anything, could be done to move forward."
Whats with the ""Agreement for Structured Negotiations""?
If what all these people were doing was a glorified workshop, what the heck was Sam Blakesly doing there? He has staff (doesn't he?)
Nope, I'm not buying the notion that all these aparent misdealings were the cause of the CSD. I think It's politics plain and ugly
I think the SWRB and the Dreamers got to liking each other.
Read the E-mail evidence.
It wasn't what they knew, but who they knew,
"Good Ol Boys" Is alive and well
Los Osos is getting a real education in politics.
It aint fair and it aint pretty
And the SWRBC are proffesional politicians!
Our CSD are, well, beginners.Mike Green; 6:29 PM, December 13, 2005
Anonymous said...: Dear Sharkey, Question, At what cost will you revolt? Where is your dollar limit. At what price, do you put on the eyepatch and join a Los Osos sewer party?Mike Green
(I was thinking of a rogue band of patriots tossing crates of toiletpaper into the bay); 7:49 PM, December 13, 2005
Anonymous said...: Oops I ment TEAletpaper.Mike green; 9:12 PM, December 13, 2005

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Saturday, December 10, 2005

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