Calhouns Can(n)ons

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There is an old saying that when you point a finger at somebody, if you look at your hand, you’ll see 3 fingers pointing back at you.

This folk wisdom came to mind reading the latest issue of the Bay News announcing the “Deadline Approaching for CSD Election,” a story about the “ . . . only political neophyte Maria Kelly [who]has [actually] filed a declaration of candidacy for the Nov 7 election for the Los Osos Community Services District Board of Directors. Four other familiar faces in the town’s sewer wars – none representing CSD opponents – have said they intend to run for the three open seats. Kelley, who has lived in the community for just over a year, . . .” has announced she’s going to run for the CSD seat that may be vacated by John Fouche. So far, Ms. Kelly is the only one whose actually taken out filing papers – for now – although several other folks are planning on running as well (Dave Duggan and Al Barrow, among other possible candidates.)

The story continues with a real howler: “When asked why no one from Taxpayers Watch had come forward, group president Joyce Albright said, ‘Nobody wants to run actually, because they don’t want to put up with the pain, the insults, the slander. Nobody wants to be abused like that. It’s gotten crazy, you’ve got to admit.”

Ah, Joyce, Joyce, truer words have never been spoken. Indeed, I find it “crazy,” for example, that a former recalled Board Member would sue the very CSD he served for “wasting money” on, among other things, frivolous lawsuits and lawyers and court cases, by – filing a lawsuit that did nothing but waste MORE money, paid for by the very citizens this former member irreparably harmed by voting to pound millions of their tax dollars into the ground only weeks before a recall. Crazy stuff all right.

And as for “insults, slander, pain . . .?” Oh, Gosh, Joyce, you’re absolutely right! One of the more interesting performances at the CSD meetings is when Joyce arrives to deliver her previously written, carefully honed and polished 3-minute Smack-Down of the Board and all their heirs and assigns, a carefully delivered, premeditated exercise in the measured infliction of pain, one that leaves the Board members dripping with vitriol. In its sheer measured calculation, it’s always a breathtakingly good performance!

Unfortunately, the skin-crawling, hair raising effect for me is too often obliterated when Joyce returns to her scooter to be greeted by her darling little white dog waiting there in the basket and as she drives away the unbidden image of Margaret Hamilton on her bicycle flies into my mind, complete with a high-pitched cackle ringing in my ears: “Heee-Heee-Heeeee, I’ll get you AND your little dog . . . .”

Suddenly, we’re not in Kansas anymore. Not, I’m sure, what Joyce had in mind.

Well, newcomer Kelly will discover there are many surprises here in Sewerville. But bless her and everyone else who decides to run. If/when the county takes the sewer project over, I can only hope that the Sewer Jihadis on either side will put a sock in it for a while, in order to let the process operate as promised. There will be plenty to do to repair the damage done by previous boards who accidentally and on-purpose ran this train off the tracks. And it will be critical that there are lots of eyes on the proposed project to spot the old sly, finger-on-the-scale manipulation that's going on even as I type.

Which means that besides whoever gets elected, it’s the ultimate responsibility of this community to stay awake during the process to make sure they don’t get fooled . . . again.