Reference Documents

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Nextdoor Sewer Fatigue


Some people around town that write on the Nextdoor website want to discuss the sewer issue and others do not. I believe it has only come up because of the upcoming election where someone who was a director before and after the Great Sewer Crash is running again to be on the LOCSD board, namely, Ms. Julie Tacker.

There is so much mis-information out there in support of this candidate that it is painful. It is impossible to know where to start to correct the misconceptions, or if anyone with their mind made up wants to learn anything different anyway. One thing is for certain, we are almost done getting our sewer and it is $29 million more than the one started in 2005.

There are some documents that need to see the light of day once again. I will insert some of them in the timeline in 2005 between the sewer work being stopped and the Water Board's reactions:

September 27, 2005 the recall election and Measure B took place and THAT caught the Water Board's attention. October 6, 2005 this letter arrived in the LOCSD offices:
http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralcoast/board_info/agendas/2005/dec/item3/item3_attachment3.pdf

Within the document in the link above is this excerpt:
(Click image to see larger size.)
How did then-director Julie Tacker say publically that the old project's money could be used for the new project that she and the other four directors of the board wanted to build?

Then Ms. Tacker thought that the District could sell its assets to build a sewer! Really? How do you replace that much money, even if you thought you could build a cheaper sewer? Will you sell the fire truck (new, it was not more than $500,000; better hope no one is careless with a cigarette, with no fire truck), or the water company (Golden State Water Company in San Dimas was given an estimated value of $55 million for 11,000 customers - the CSD has 2750 customers, do the math)? Not enough money to even buy every house a Reclamator!

The State Revolving Fund money, necessary to build a sewer, any sewer, was at last permanently cut off. See pages 4-5:
http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/board_info/minutes/2005/min111605.pdf

(The press release: http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/press_room/press_releases/2005/05_025.pdf)

Then December 9, 2005 the agenda for the State Water Board had this item for their consideration:
http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/board_info/agendas/2005/december/1209-01.pdf

Read off the link below page 254, lines 8-14 - Interim General Manager Dan Bleskey's testimony on stopping the project:
http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralcoast/board_info/minutes/2005/12_05_los_osos_hearing_transcript_1_of_2.pdf

8 MS. OKUN: Well, that wasn't my 
9 question. My question was did anybody at the  
10 State Board ever say that it wasn't a violation of  
11 the loan agreement to stop the construction  
12 progress for a timeout?  
13 MR. BLESKEY: To say that it was a  
14 violation of the contract?  
15 MS. OKUN: Did they say that it was not  
16 a violation of the State Board --  
17 MR. BLESKEY: No, they said that it was.  
18 But it is a contractual remedy plain as day, in  
19 language written by them. 
We know how well that rationale of Mr. Bleskey's turned out.

That's all I can stand of this stuff. I supect that not everyone reading here has made it to the bottom of this page as noxious as these facts are. And I don't know if I would have written this at all if there wasn't an alarming candidate running for Los Osos CSD in November.


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