Los Osos Sewer Rate 218 Vote Upcoming

John Diodati, Interim County Public Works Director,* made a surprise visit to LOCAC (Los Osos Community Advisory Council**) Thursday night, November 21. He said that the County revisits the unincorporated areas' wastewater system rates every five years, but that Los Osos' rates have not been evaluated for 10 years. There is going to be an upcoming workshop in January (not sure where), then the County will come back to the community in February to discuss everything, and then in March, the 218 process will start with a Board of Supervisors item for them to give the go-ahead, and the "vote" will end in 45 days with our vote results at the Board of Supervisors.

The rates were established back in 2010 and as there was no plant then, the rates were guestimates. We have actual costs now that the plant has been running for a few years. Apparently a "cost of living" percentage was never put on our rates, so we are spending more now as the rates issued 10 years have failed to keep up with expenses of paying off the loan and running the plant.The new rates will phase in over two years with a 5-6% increase plus a cost of living percentage of 3%. Our rates are not going to be worse than Cayucos, Morro Bay and Black Lake. The rate consists of the debt repayment and O&M (operating and maintenence costs). 

I know I have been remiss of late in writing here, but I will post everything I find out on this important topic!


* During the "sewer days" he was the Grants Coordinator—the guy who helped get us the low interest USDA loan. He was the "spearhead" guy. Congresspeople (is that a word?) Lois Capps and Kevin McCarthy (a Democrat and a Republican working together - imagine that!) did the House side of the bill and Senator Dianne Feinstein worked the Senate side to get a variance for that money— our population was really too big to qualify for that USDA loan which normally is granted for a population of 10,000 (we are 14,276 as of the 2010 census).

** I'm on the Council.

Dignitary Stuffed Ribbon Cutting Ceremony!!

It is now official. Our swanky new sewer has been officially dedicated, complete with an unexpectedly large boatload of people in govenment who got this plant planned, green-lighted, and funded. It appears that our sewer, for all its grief, or maybe because of it, is quite the public works star. And I will say, it is actually rather gorgeous!

So the ceremony got a bit of a late start, it was to have started at 11:00 a.m., but people kept arriving on the cool red bus rented to schlep us from the cemetery parking place (thanks Los Osos Valley Mortuary!) to the event building—sort of tall carport, the name of which I forgot to get.

Anyway, the official Town Criers were there and I wish I had recorded what they said; it was hilarious, detailed, well written and just plain sentimentally sweet. Thanks to whomever thought to have them at this ceremony - and thanks to Bev and Jerry Praver, you guys were great!!

Bruce Gibson was the Master of Ceremonies. Speakers included Congresswoman Lois Capps, UDSA Deputy Under Secretary Lillian Salerno from Washington D.C., former Public Works Director Paavo Ogren, Project Manager John Waddell.

Present but not speaking, former District 2 Supervisor Shirley Bianchi, District 4 Supervisor Lynn Compton, former State Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee, and representatives from various other state elected officials, sorry, I didn't get the complete list.

Thanks went out to a long list of people, including the members of the TAC - Technical Advisory Committee that met about a zillion times reporting out the facts that they found on the sewer issues - financial, environmental, and engineering.

Note: our USDA loan was the largest single amount ever expended by that department.

The cake was very tasty, btw—there were four of them. Here is what I saw (click on any image to see a larger size). AND, the drone hovered capturing the scene!!! Those of us who noticed, waved (I hope we don't get edited out)!!:

The Venue

Town Criers Bev and Jerry Praver

Bruce Gibson

Lois Capps

 Paavo Ogren

 John Waddell

 Fake Scissors

 Real Scissors

The Bus

 Shot  from the bus window - there is water in there now!

They are planting still, although most of it was completed.

 The sign in a ultra cool, hip and retro design!

CDBG in Our Future; WRDA, Who Knows....

The Community Development Block Grant Program (CDBG) was on the Supes agenda today (also on this part of the agenda: Home Investment Partnerships [HOME], and the Emergency Solutions Grant [ESG] Programs) and unless you follow this sort of thing, your eyes may tend to glaze over that steaming bowl of alphabet soup. Mine did anyway as I was watching the meeting online. But then Sunny Oaks, the mobile home park here in Los Osos was mentioned for a grant request for a sewer improvement project and I thereby deglazed.

Today's agenda item was to approve the Urban County of San Luis Obispo Program Year 2014 Action Plan to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for funding possibilities. HUD hasn't released its funding amounts yet, so when it does, the County will need to go back and adjust the final funding levels for Board approval.

There is a lot more to this report than just a sewer related item, so you can read the staff report here:
http://agenda.slocounty.ca.gov/agenda/sanluisobispo/3054/SXRlbSBEb2N1bWVudCAoUHVibGljKSA=/14/n/24894.doc

But more to the point of Los Osos and the big sewer, not just the need at the Sunny Oaks' tiny sewer, was this pithy statement:

The County received a total of 25 applications under the CDBG program for the Urban County. Each application was reviewed using the Board approved seven rating criteria. For the 2014 program year, the County received an application by the County Public Works Department for assisting low-income families connect to the Los Osos waste water collection system. The project cannot start before the completion of the waste water collection system, which is anticipated to be late 2016. Staff could not recommend this project, because it was not ready to be implemented soon enough to meet the CDBG timeliness standard.

So in case you were wondering where we might get help for our low income residents, this will be the place later along in the sewer project.

There was a mention too regarding Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) monies, (long in the pipeline for relief sewer cash) by Mike Miller of the Ferguson Group, our County's federal legislative guy in Washington D.C., dare I say lobbyist? That request was put forth by our Congresswoman Lois Capps back in 2007 when $35 million was then authorized. But as Mr. Miller said, there is a big jump between an an authorization and an appropriation. Especially since Congress banned earmarks, which is what this was. But this authorization isn't going to go away unless Congress specifically de-authorized it and it can just sit there isn the pipeline for a long time. The way to get this funded now (no more petitions of need to Senators/Representatives and the like) is to convince to the Corps of Engineers (and it is now going to be a Section 219 project, who develops a work plan for funding, which Congress then approves), that OUR PROJECT is a TOP project.

I suspect this info and the potential pot of EPA money that our Supervisor Bruce Gibson mentioned, will be part of the sewer meeting on Wednesday at the middle school.