Calhouns Can(n)ons

Uh-Oh, Where Do We Send The Flowers?

KVEC talk radio host, Dave Congalton, used to laughingly-- and regularly-- note that a Tribune endorsement was the Kiss of Death and whatever or whoever they endorsed would lose. I see in today’s paper, for the Los Osos Community Services District Board of Directors, they’ve endorsed: Maria Kelly, Rob Shipe and Joe Sparks.

Gosh, they have my deepest condolences.

For everyone who attended last night’s Meet the Candidates forum, put on by the Amazing! Wonderful! League of Women Voters (Huzzah for all they do), good on you. It was an excellent presentation, the questions selected avoided a lot of hot-button issues and stayed focused on what the CSD will need to do to get back on its feet. There is supposed to be another forum, so maybe some of the “hot button” questions can be asked then.

What the Tribune failed to appreciate but what the Los Osos voters need to keep in mind is that although the Hideous Sewer is technically off the CSD’s plate, selection of new Board members will be absolutely critical since a Board majority will have crucial Official input with the County and since they will be “elected officials,” they have far more power than regular citizens. It is therefore crucial what whoever gets elected is totally committed to see to it that The Process of selecting a wastewater project is honored, that Ginned-up Short-Cutters, Closed-Doors-Done-Dealers, Sewer Jihadi Monkey-Wrenchers – whether RWQCB or CSD Board Members themselves, or Developers or County Engineering or Citizens or Whoever -- be told loudly and clearly by the CSD majority: Back Away From The Table and Get Your Thumbs Off The Scale!

Otherwise, we’ll be looking at another train wreck. And nobody wants that. Nobody.

So, joking aside, folks here in Los Osos better be very thoughtful and careful about who they select to sit on their CSD Board. It’s a critical issue that the Tribune missed. I can only hope the citizens don’t.

So maybe that’s a question that needs to be asked of each candidate at the next forum or at any of their meet-n-greets or if you see any of them at Farmers Market.


Just When You Thought There Was Hope

On 9/13 I posted a blog entry entitled, “Yes, It’s A Pop Quiz,” wherein I printed an excerpt from the RWQCB’s original CDO Technical Evidence and Comments report then printed an excerpt from my original letter, which indicated what I actually wrote. Unfortunately, their original précis misprepesented what I had actually written. I had sent them a letter pointing that misrepresentation out and requesting they correct the record. I stated on the blog that I presumed they would do so.

Bwahahahahah. Silly me.

In their New! Improved! CDO Technical Evidence and Comment report, an official document pretending to be truthful, factual & etc, there, once again, are my comments. Have they been corrected? Nope. Not a bit of it. The RWQCB staff simply did another cut and past job and put into the New! Improved! Report, the Old! WRONG! Information.

Once AGAIN I emailed Matt Thompson at the water board and AGAIN requested that either the misstatement and misrepresentation of what I actually wrote be corrected or if they can’t do a simple and correct précis, then delete all of it.

Why is this important? As I said before, “ . . . it’s hard to justify such scientific and technical dishonesty. So far as I can see, there are two explanations for what they did in this report: (1) The staff who prepared this Official document are incompetent and cannot read, understand and write an accurate précis. (2) The staff who prepared this Official Technical Response document deliberately falsified my comment in order to set up a false straw man and so deflect or eliminate the necessity of responding the POINT of my comment, i.e. that there were, indeed, better interim alternatives to their Mad Pumping Scheme. And that, of course, begs the most important question of all: If Staff was not able to get my minor comments right, What ELSE have they falsified or distorted?”

To that previous comment I can now add, if staff was given an opportunity and a formal request to correct a misrepresentation and refused to do so, or was so rushed they did a sloppy re-write, or just slapped something together, what does that say about their entire report?

Roger Briggs will soon be away on an extended leave. This is curious, since the CDO hearings will commence, again, Nov 2nd, and at the original CDO hearing, one of the RWQCB attorneys stated that the CDO hearings couldn’t proceed without him there since he’s at the heart of everything the board has done in Los Osos for 25 years ( now there’s a nexus worth looking into),yet he’s going to be conveniently far, far away from the 45 who have a right to question him at the hearings? Convenient, did I say? Interesting, too.


Auditors to Look At CSD

At the LAFCo hearings, it was agreed that the Board (and Sam Blakeslee) would ask a state agency to do a full audit of the CSD to determine how their operational and financial systems are set up.

This is great news. This history of our bankruptcy train wreck starts quite a ways back so the audit should be able to track who did what with which funds, see if there were any procedures and laws violated vis a vis reserve funds, hiring decisions, contracts signed/contractors paid out when, etc. In short, the CSD should end up with a “history,” and a set of recommendations that will help them set up a better system of double-checks and trip-wires that should make district operations more transparent and accountable.

And who knows, maybe the STATE auditors will follow the breadcrumbs back to the State Water Board and start asking auditor-like questions about the State Revolving Fund Loan and how it was written and they’ll follow some bread crumbs back to some contractors who, it is alleged, were paid before the proper paperwork was completed & etc. Dotted i’s and crossed t’s. It’s what good auditors look for. It’s what an audit of a system of operation looks for and can maybe set right.

And now, for some weirdness

What is with selling the Tri-W property? One of the strangest episodes in the whole LAFCO hearing was when Paavo Ogren, county deputy director of public works, the guy now in charge of the Hideous Sewer, stood up to say that the County didn’t have any interest one way or the other in whether Tri W is sold or not and that the presence or absence of the site won’t affect the evaluation Process the county will undertake to look at all options. This claim was repeated in an Oct 2 Trib story. Said Ogren, “If it’s sold to a third party, and that site ends up being what the community wants, then we’re going [to] have to figure out how we’re going to go about buying it back. . . . There’s no need to be antagonistic.”

If I were a district engineer charged with building a sewer plant and I thought Tri-W was an option that was very much in the running, most especially because the permits it already carries, I would be leading the pack in lobbying to keep it on the table. Gail Wilcox, who isn’t a district engineer but is the county’s deputy administrator, is concerned and is quoted in the Trib as saying, “If the CSD wants to take Tri-W off the plate, I ask, “Why? Why don’t you let the community make that decision?’”

And Lisa Schicker, LOCSD Prez, noted in the same Trib story, that if Tri W was sold, the permits needed for a sewer plant “would be voided by the sale.” (an “opinion” only. If actually true, why couldn’t that “void” be “un-voided” if the county bought the property and so got the permit anyway?)

But, on the other hand, if I were a district engineer charged with building a sewer plant and I thought Tri-W was so far off the table of being an option that it was ranked in my mind as dead last or beyond dead last, despite its permits, I would be cavalierly insouciant about its sale, too.

So, what gives?

Well, as with all things here in Sewerville, Stay tuned.