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.

IGM Will Get Up to $291,000 a Year

Ahhh, now for an interesting bit of sewer history!

Much has been made of Paavo Ogren's salary as the new General Manager of Oceano. But in searching around the internet, I found an overlooked bit of history about our own Los Osos CSD from 2005. Apparently one of those yelling the loudest about the Oceano General Manager's salary was a supporter of a Los Osos INTERIM General Manager making a TON more money than Mr. Ogren!

The facts on this mountain of money for an IGM for Los Osos were published in The Sun Bulletin (a Tribune subsidiary back then) on October 19, 2005. I had to go into the archives and pay $2.95 at NewsLibrary.com, the service provider for the SLO Tribune Archives, so I can't point to a link to the article directly, but you can access it yourself if you want to pay, google this title in the Trib's archives (there is more than one article too):

October 19, 2005 INTERIM LOS OSOS MANAGER WILL GET $140 AN HOUR PRIVATE ENGINEER HIRED BY NEW SERVICES DISTRICT BOARD COULD COST $14,500 TO $24,000 A MONTH AGENCY ALSO HIRES NEW INTERIM SPOKESWOMAN Author: The Sun Bulletin (I will add the writer named at the bottom of the story, Nathan Welton.)

The gist of the article says that Dan Bleskey will replace Bruce Buel as GM. Buel earned $94,000 year plus benefits. LOCSD President Lisa Schicker reported that Bleskey would work 3-5 days a week. He will cost the District between $14,500 to $24,000 a MONTH!

So, for a former LOCSD Director to raise a stink about a salary to a permanent General Manager (who by the way will be working two jobs under that title) in another town in which she does not live, seems hypocritical at the very least, but to those who follow sewer politics, it seems like an angry punishment toward a person who, as Public Works Director, offered so much expertise, support and hard work toward getting Los Osos a much delayed sewer, which this same CSD Director didn't seem entirely sold on our town even needing.