Calhouns Can(n)ons

FRONT PAGE!

Ah, my beloved Bangladesh By the Bay made the front page of the Tribune today, March 7. Big time front page headlines, “Osos CSD to pay for flood repair.” Woooo!

As is so often true with most Tribune stories, this one started out on its constantly mutating peregrination by appearing to be about (1) the CSD will pay the homeowners up front for damage to some homes caused “after contractors struck a water line while working on the agency’s now-defunct sewer project.,” (2) then get reimbursed from the insurance agency later, while (3) CSD General manager Blesky told the reporter that the insurance carrier told him they only received the claims report last week while (4) none of the insurance company reps could be reached for comment, which means the question of whether the insurance company was acting in a timely manner or the CSD reports were sent in late remains unanswered, which is O.K. because clearly this story is of such urgency and importance that it has to run before all the information is in.

Even though this “news” (authorize the CSD to pay the flooded out folks, then wrangle with the insurance companies later) was announced, if memory serves, several weeks ago at a CSD meeting.

But then, by the jump page – typical Trib – the story shifted focus and noted that even though the district received “most of the residents’ claims by the first week of January, it did not supply them to The Tribune until Monday, despite numerous requests.”

And there it was, the story within the story, the first real story, the story that should have made the front page headlines: TRIBUNE SNUBBED ON INFO REQUESTS, AGAIN! (Remember the RWQCB stonewalling the Trib’s request for info on the Los Osos Forty-Five targeted CDO citizens? Got ignored, got foot-dragged, finally got only a partial redacted list, waaaaay late, boo-hoo, in total Violation of the public Records Act & etc.!)

And, then, this: CSD lawyer Julie Hayward Biggs explaining that the delay “was because the district’s records were disorganized and they were ‘still looking for claim documents.’”

And, there, of course, is the second REAL story – records in a muddle, an internal audit, another request by citizens for the DA to investigate the CSD Boardmembers, a dissolution campaign going on, the CDO hearings coming up (the CSD signed on as a designated party), ongoing regular CSD business, unavoidable delays, avoidable delays, staffing problems, in short, a CSD staff under fire from so many guns – THAT story, the REAL story goes missing.

And once again, the reader is left to ramble into misleading headlines, then down the rabbit hole of text confusion and jump-page switcheroos – another typical Tribune moment!

Get me rewrite! Or at least an editor?