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Thursday, February 02, 2006

Strongly Held Community Value? We don' know 'nuttin' 'bout no Strongly Held Community Value, sez Ron Crawford over at www.sewerwatch.blogspot.com, once again asking those pesky Park Questions and updating his Grand Jury request.
Posted by Churadogs at 6:25 AM

15 comments:

Shark Inlet said...

"Yet again, Ron spends his time focusing on the past when as a journalist he might want to focus on the current news. Details at 11."

Even if he is right about everything to do with the park ... it doesn't matter one bit to today's questions.

Today's key question is whether the LOCSD is going to do something quickly to allow a sewer and WWTF to be built ASAP. If they don't they are choosing to continue the pumping charges (which go up tenfold as of Jan 2010) for longer than necessary. If they spend their time and efforts diddling around and ignoring state waterboard and CCC input like Ron accuses the previous board of doing (and the parallels are simply too many to ignore) it is the LOCSD who is hurting our community.

If someone gets kicked in the stomach (by the old board), is the best solution to the problem to kick them again? This is what the new board seems to be doing. On their CCLO rant, they are simply rejecting as "wrong" everything the previous board had done. Bathwater, tub and baby all thrown out.

Why oh why, after the election, couldn't they have taken a week or so to study the issues thoroughly, to listen to the staff and engineers, to read over the SWRCB, RWQCB and CCC documents? Why couldn't they devise a plan that would allow them to achieve their goals (moving the plant) without pissing off the state so damn much?

Ron, that's where the story is today!

If the new board had simply learned from the mistakes of the old board they could have avoided a lot of pain. Instead, they insisted on learning hard lessons themselves (at our expense) and they appear to be continually sliding back down the learning curve (witness Lisa's and Julie's recent comments about the CnD orders) instead of moving up it like the previous board did.

10:34 AM, February 02, 2006
Anonymous said...

Ah, The shark inlet propaganda project, just like clock work.
Forget the past. Tri w is the only way. Forget the recall vote. Forget measure B, which is LAW. Just once I'd like to see a posting by Ann or Ron about the sewer project that wasn't flamed by these guys and ther cynical spin:
"Even if he is right about everything to do with the park ... it doesn't matter one bit to today's questions."
What BS.

10:51 AM, February 02, 2006
Ron said...

Pittsburgh 23 / Seattle 20

11:47 AM, February 02, 2006
Anonymous said...

In developing SafeCo field, the city of Seattle used the fact that there was a strong community held value of putting a football field in the middle of town, despite clear polling opposed to using taxpayer money to subsidize an NFL team.

Seattle should not be allowed to play in the SuperBowl until there has been a full investigation.

Pittsburgh 20, Seattle 3.

12:29 PM, February 02, 2006
Shark Inlet said...

anonymous,

As you've suggested that whether Pandora and Co. lied to the CCC about the "community value" on having a park in the Sewer project matters to today's question, the question of what we should do next to minimize financial suffering and pollution ... how does it matter at all?

I'm open to hearing reasons ... hell, even one would be nice ... why the LOCSD's mentioning of a 2001 poll or not in the application to the CCC makes any difference as to what the best option is now.

Waiting patiently for your answer....

On the topic of SafeCo and the game, I would suggest that Seattle should be banned from playing any NFL games until all the alternative sites for a stadium, including a floating stadium on Lake Washington, are explored fully and costed out to the penny. Steelers 28, Seattle 12.

1:59 PM, February 02, 2006
Shark Inlet said...

Addendum to anonymous,

I do think that Ann and Ron have some really worthwhile things to say ... they are just far too focused on the past.

Certainly one can be a great journalist and cover only historical matters rather than news.

The problem, though is that if a journalist or comentator (or a professional of any sort) continues to look at the world through their historical viewpoint they tend to miss a few important things. If every analysis of the problems the US faces today are analyzed by someone who views the world through a Cold War lens, they may miss some important facts about the real threats to the US today. (I.e. we need to worry much more about Kazakhstan than Russia.)

I am thinking that Ron and Ann are missing the big picture about what is really happening in Los Osos because they tend to agree only with CCLO (perhaps for different reasons, however).

3:01 PM, February 02, 2006
Shark Inlet said...

I see that the LOCSD is going to discuss (in closed session) the selling of TriW and Broderson today.

Hmm...

Is this really in the best interest of our community ... to sell off sites which could be the best choice if Measure B is struck down or somehow determined to not preclude a TriW plant?

Who wants to bet that the sale of TriW makes it onto the next agenda. I smell another lawsuit coming on!

I get the feeling that this board feels it is okay to "play dirty" and that the ends justify the means because they view the previous board as having done so.

What I care about is the people who are going to get hurt. If the board's actions increase the number of those people ... if the costs keep going up ... if the pollution continues ... this board will have shown themselves to be worse than even what the previous board is accused of doing.

Feh!

4:31 PM, February 02, 2006
Mike Green said...

Seahawks-0 Steelers-0 So much overtime that we get to see the realy good beer adds ten times through.
Its decided by a coin toss.

7:25 PM, February 02, 2006
Shark Inlet said...

Before any resolution on the Measure B lawsuit (which would presumably clarify whether TriW can or cannot be used as a WWTF site), the LOCSD board voted today in closed session to put the TriW and Broderson properties on the market.

What is most frustrating is that the legality of Measure B has not yet been determined.

This board has claimed that Measure B ... is what forced them to stop construction at TriW. What if the aspect of Measure B that would appear to forbid TriW (the location near a park, church and library) is ruled invalid? In that case, the TriW site would be allowable and should be available for us to vote on after another site is further considered.

It would appear that this board is attempting to subvert the spirit of Measure B by such a choice.

With their announcement at the last minute (within a day of the closed session) and with the vote today during closed session they have shown their true colors. They are more concerned with moving the plant than with pretty much anything else.

I am saddened this day for the spirit of demoracy and for the people of Los Osos who will not have to pay far more than we would had they chosen to go back to the TriW site.

Double Feh!

7:35 PM, February 02, 2006
Churadogs said...

The CSD did not put Tri W "on the market." What they voted in closed session to do was to "list" it, a far different kettle of fish. Listing opens up offers and can get a determination as to who's interested, if anyone, what price they're offering, & etc. If and when the Board wants to sell TriW they will have to go through a whole agenda, public comment, vote, etc. That's a long way off, especially considering the various encumberances on the property.

Ss for being focused on the past, perhaps you're forgetting the famous line, The past is prolog. Or the old, Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

Our system of government is designed to run on a one way track with almost NO CHANCE of a direction change. Once you take that first fatal step, everything is linked to it and pushing you down that track, no matter if the track is leading to a cliff. That's the problem with the way we've set things up. In our case, the very agencies that could/should have acted as safety nets failed utterly. Apathy, laziness, collusion, whatever, instead of doing their jobs, they simply kept pushing Los Osos off their table. The result wasn't sound government, sound projects. The result was a train wreck.

The same thing is happening again with this ludicrous terror tactic of targeting The RANDOM Los Osos Fifty, soon to be the entire prohibition zone. There is no science behind any of it.

One interesting wrinkle came up at last night's meeting. The average septic tank, say, holds 1,000 gallons. Every randomly selected tank will be forced to be pumped 6x a year. Since there will be no time for the collection of any solids, what will be sucked out and transported to Santa Maria will be 1,000 gallons of WATER from each tank. Are there, what? 4,000 homes in the prohibition zone to be targeted eventually? Inlet will love this: Multiply 4,000 homes x 1,000 gallons x 6 times as year and see how many gallons of WATER will be trucked out of the county to be dumped in Santa Maria, WATER that will be coming out of an impaired, overdrafted basin that's already suffering from salt water intrusion. ??? Does any of that make sense? Do you sense a regulatory train wreck ahead caused by the law of unintended consequences, brought about because once the RWQCB puts this community on that track it won't be able to turn back or change direction, once again it will be pedal to the metal and off the cliff?

9:24 AM, February 03, 2006
Ron said...

Shark said:

"Ron spends his time focusing on the past when as a journalist he might want to focus on the current news."

Ken Lay would love that reasoning:

"People, people, people, how does punishing me for what I did in 2000 help devastated former Enron employees today? Can't you media people and prosecutors just forget about the past? We must focus on today."

Oh, O.K. Ken. You and Shark have a point there.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, obviously something is broke and unless it is fixed, a 'Los Osos' will happen in another community.

Think about it, any sleazy developer that gets wind of this could just go to the Coastal Commission and say, "There's a strongly held community value to build 500 condos on the sandspit. Could you guys hook that up for me, pronto? Peace. Out."

And then the next thing you know, there are 500 condos on the sandspit, the community's in an uproar, and the sleazy developer walks away with a truckload of cash and impunity. That's not a State that I want to live in. For the most part, I'm a fan of laws.

Unless it's fixed (translated: if you lie to the Coastal Commission about extremely important things, then you will get punished. And I don't mean the agency gets punished -- in this case, the LOCSD, which wouldn't fix a thing -- I mean the people that did the lying are punished) there will always be a danger of a 'Los Osos' happening again somewhere else.

As for those poor folks in Seattle, sounds like they need my help.

But before I move, I want to Google "Seattle weather" real quick, just a sec, I'll be right back...




... looks like they're on their own!


(I just read Ann's post above... excellent!)

9:56 AM, February 03, 2006
Shark Inlet said...

Fair enough Ron,

If a friend of yours totaled your car you would rather focus your efforts blaming him and you would insist on spending $2000 to fix the car which was worth $500 before the accident and will be worth $500 after the $2000 fix. I would rather figure out whether I can find a car that will meet my needs for less than $2000. To each his own.

You would rather focus on what went wrong 5 years ago than what is going wrong today. I would think, however, that you would also be interested in the current story, but I can't make you spend any time investigating the current situation. Again, your choice.

As for being doomed to repeat our past Ann is right ... this board hasn't learned anything from the troubles the earlier board had. This new group has promised us stuff that they should have known in advance that they cannot hope to deliver. Ann has another good point when she writes "Once you take that first fatal step, everything is linked to it and pushing you down that track, no matter if the track is leading to a cliff." The problem here is that she doesn't see it was the LOCSD board voting to stop the project before they had taken any counsel from the people who would have been able to help them see the implications of such an action (Buel and Seitz) that was the first fatal step.

11:30 AM, February 03, 2006
Churadogs said...

Actually, Inlet, I would trace a HUGE, DELIBERATE misstep to the recalled 3 who gambled with gazillions of the taxpayers dollars when they voted to start pounding money into the ground before the recall election. That was such an incredibly reckless and unnecessary thing to do. And the community will pay a fearseome price for that comtemptous disregard of this community welfare. It was a shameful act. And an ironic one, to boot: it cost them their seats and cost the community the Tri-W project.(for some that's a good thing, for others a bad thing, but the result is the same) A huge mess that was totally unnecessary.

6:12 AM, February 10, 2006
Shark Inlet said...

I tend to agree with you Ann about the choice to have the election as late as possible. (If you recall, I didn't always feel that way.)

Presumably it could have been held earlier than the start of construction the way things played out. Remember though, that Steve Sawyer turned in his petitions for the recall some months after he claimed to have enough signatures. Remember though, that court cases did delay the start of construction and others may have delayed things even further. Remember that there was a TSO that needed to be met and had the construction not started on time there would have been a fine from the RWQCB.

I think they wanted to start construction ASAP just to get things started. It had been some umpteen years of obstruction by CCLO and others that had caused frustrating delays.

If nothing else, I believe they lost because of that choice. The election was close enough that just 200 votes carried the day.

But if you are gonna start talking about reckless and unnecessary things that ended up costing us money ... you've got some 'splainin' to do about your board's choices. The loss of the SRF, the RWQCB fines, the settlements with various lawyers, the individual CnD orders all would still have happened even if the recall had been successful but before the start of construction. Shoot, even the way this current board played their cards when stopping construction has resulted in a much larger damage claim from the contractors than if they had just said "we're stopping ... period ... here's the $6M for work done so far."

Please note, however, that whether the previous board made mistakes or not, it was the choice of this current board to stop the construction. If you're a gonna blame Stan for the costs associated with starting and stopping construction you've a gotta blame Lisa as well.

1:15 PM, February 10, 2006
Anonymous said...

Shark,

You hit the nail on the head. We need a community sing-a-long led by Stan and Lisa. Stan can apologize for starting construction. Lisa can apologize for stopping construction.

Every lawyer and litigant past and present can sit up on a bench behind a screen and we can throw rotten tomatoes at them, and then everyone will gather to sing Kumbaya. Guest conductor will be one Mr. Shallcross.

Also, everyone will be required to bring a $1,000 bill to pay off debt - or we can just pass a hat.

On that nice new community sign on LOVR, we should start posting the Los Osos debt (kinda like the talley of the running US national debt - you know, where every man, woman, and child in the US owes $5819 - or like the McDonalds sign - billions and billions sold).

5:30 PM, February 10, 2006

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