Calhouns Can(n)ons

Stood Up

Well, dang! I’m sitting here perusing the bright yellow Taxpayers’ Watch flyer, the one that undoubtedly convinced 2,000 of my fellow citizens to sign the Dissolve the CSD petitions the Taxpayers’ Watch has been passing around, you know, the one that conflates rejoining the county with stopping the Cease & Desist Orders, like Taxpayers Watch didn’t and doesn’t want the signer to know that the RWQCB officially, on the record, has stated that dissolving the CSD and stopping the CDOs are utterly disconnected, that one has nothing to do with the other, so then, since I’m scared and confused and since at least one of the Taxpayers’ Watchers has told me personally that he KNOWS Roger Briggs of the RWQCB would stop the CDOs the minute the county took over and additionally he KNOWS the county will take over and immediately start building the Tri-W sewer plant in the middle of town, and when I asked him how he “knows” that, he started backpedaling, Uh, er, Um, but heck, I’m confused and so scared of that big meanie Briggs so I’m not thinking straight, and then there’s Joyce Albright, chairperson of Taxpayers’ Watch in her Feb 22 letter to the Tribune editor stating as fact that “the old project is not dead. It will be resurrected by the county and permits reissued,” despite the statements by the RWQCB’s prosecution staff that they know of no county project or plans to build anything anywhere, so now I’m really confused, facts, lies, spin, conflation, oh, what’s a person to do, and there at the bottom of the bright yellow Dissolution Flyer it conflates “safety” with signing the petition and says I should sign the petition and CONVINCE my friends to do the same and ends with a CONCLUSION that “The ONLY way out of this dilemma is to DISSOLVE THE LOCSD AND ASK THE COUNTY TO TAKE CHARGE. Sad but needed” so what’s a person to do, Oh, Dear, Oh, Dear.

So then I look at the Feb 22 Bay News, and the headline says, “County Won’t Help Homeowners,” and there it is, the county was asked by the CSD to step in as a “designated party” or even an “interested party” in the upcoming March 23 CDO hearings and turns out the “Supervisors voted in closed session last week to not enter the fray with the Regional Water Quality Control Board as an ‘interested party’ and defend homeowners being prosecuted for polluting the groundwater.”

“According to County Administrator David Edge, one of the reasons for denial was that the CSD asked them to jump on board in a hurry. ‘There was not enough opportunity to review and consider it,’ said Edge, [who] lives in Los Osos. ‘“I fully expect to revisit it down the road. I imagine they (the CSD) will be submitting a formal request.’”

So, there it was. A whole bunch of people have been told as fact, positively, absolutely, that their loving protector would be waiting for them at the altar and then, Ker-Blam! he gets cold feet and says to his terrified bride who’s running full tilt into his now disappearing arms, “Errrhhhh, Ummmmm, wellll, we’ll THINK about it . . . like, LATER and then scuttles out the church door, little puffs of dust flying up behind his blurred, fast flying feet, leaving his loving, trusting, dim-bulb Los Osos bride standing in the vestibule weeping and crying out, “But, but, you were gonna SAVE me!” while clutching a bunch of wilted petunias and what the hell is she going to do now with all those little finger sandwiches and champagne punch waiting back in the reception hall? O Woe!

Meantime, ironies of ironies, the CSD has already asked for and gotten permission to enter the fray as a Designated Party in order to “defend homeowners being prosecuted for polluting the groundwater,” to use the Bay News’ terminology. In short, to help defend the very homeowners who have signed petitions to dissolve away their only “protector.”

It’s too, too delicious.

On a related note, the County owns the Los Osos branch of the Library and the community park, both of which have toilets that discharge into the groundwater. Yet the Regional Water Quality Control Board DID NOT slap them with a Civil Liability Action in December, like they did in for the three properties (and toilets) owned by the CSD.

I wonder why not?