Julie's Revisionist History......Again.

I am stepping into the sewer on my sewer blog to correct the misstatements of a certain retread political candidate for the LOCSD. Once again Julie Tacker is making, no, faking history to put herself in a more favorable light. This image is off her campaign Facebook page - click to see a larger image and to read the text:

Misstatement #1 - "...which District 2 County Supervisor wouldn't move the sewer in 2003 when the permits were before them?"

Nooooo. That is NOT what was before them. YOU, Ms. Tacker, were before them—on the topic of the Coastal Development Permit; you were stating that the EIR was faulty. There was no "moving the sewer" mentioned. If "moving it" was the intent, it would take an incredible amount of work to do so, actually YEARS of work, not just a meeting in front of the Board. Never mind the additional cost.

Here is a copy-and-paste right off of the minutes of the October 21, 2003 Board of Supervisor's meeting (and BTW, the EIR was certified on March 1, 2001, so as the objections and lawsuits mounted, we can already see how this was upping the cost of the project: 2001 - $81.6 million; 2003 - $93 million):

This is the time set for hearing to consider an appeal by Julie Tacker for Concerned Citizens of Los Osos and Al Barrow for Citizens for Affordable and Safe Environment of the Planning Commission’s approval of the Planning Commission’s approval of the Los Osos wastewater project, a request by the Los Osos Community Services District to construct and operate a community wastewater project to include a collection system, treatment facility plant, effluent disposal system, harvest well system and all related infrastructure, located in the community of Los Osos; 2nd District. 

Ms. Nancy Orton: Project Manager for the County, presents the staff report; outlines the location of the project; addresses the issues of the appeal; comments on drawings of the proposed sewer site; corrects Conditions #73 and #74, the beginning of the paragraph, to read: “Prior to Approving Sewer Hookups for New Construction.”; recommends adoption of the resolution upholding the Planning Commission’s recommendation and deny both appeals.

Ms. Julie Tacker: Appellant (Concerned Citizens of Los Osos), states she is representing 108 concerned citizens; believes the EIR is not complete for the proposal before the Board; urges the Board to delay or deny this request until this EIR has been completed; gives a video tape presentation of her appeal which outlines her concerns to the Tri-W site; no study being done on the impacts to the downtown businesses; concerns regarding sludge, septage, water, hydrology, drainage, ESHA (Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Areas), SSMP (Septic System Management Plan), economics, assessment and the conditions of approval.

Chairperson Ryan: speaks to his history with the project and in support of the LOCSD. Matter is fully discussed and thereafter, on motion of Supervisor Bianchi, secondedby Supervisor Pinard and on the following roll call vote: 

AYES: Supervisors Bianchi, Pinard, Achadjian, Chairperson Ryan  

NOES: None

ABSENT: Supervisor Ovitt 

the Board denies both appeals, Conditions #73 and #74 are amended to change the first sentence to read: “Prior to Approving Sewer Hookups for New Construction.” and RESOLUTION NO. 2003-366, resolution affirming the decision of the Planning Commission and conditionally approving the application of Los Osos Community Services District for Development Plan/Coastal Development Permit D020283D, adopted as amended.

EVERY ONE PRESENT VOTED AGAINST YOU! You are picking on Bianchi because she called it like it is: "If I lived in Los Osos, I would vote for almost anyone but Julie Tacker. She was, is, and probably always will be, a political disaster." (I'm sure she is tough enough to take the taunts from a, pardon the expression, lightweight like you.)

Misstatement #2 - "...had Bianchi and that board voted to deny the Tri-W  permits the sewer would have been out of town, contracts wouldn't have been let and a nasty bankruptcy wouldn't have ensued."

Well, let's just pick that one apart! You readers all know by now that Measure B, which stopped the sewer until it was proven in court to be invalid, was won by a slender 19 votes in 2005. What evidence was there to show there were enough votes to pass it in 2003 (not that it had been even DRAFTED then), and how else would the "community will" to move it be demonstrated if not by a vote? Look how many years it took to get to the point of selecting a location with the County's project behind the cemetery? You just assumed some magic wand could provide the location, the EIR, and the permits I guess.

You know Julie, that your board wouldn't even ALLOW a 218 vote in 2005 which would have demonstrated the community's will, you were so afraid that it would not pass, and that the sewer would then continue at Tri-W. It was put to your board by the State Water Board and you refused to do it. Don't claim it was the cost of holding a vote - how do you think there would be ANY money for ANY sewer without a VOTE? A vote this time that would involve property owners ONLY - not a "Measure-B-anyone-can-vote" type of vote?

The contracts had to be let for the project that was going to be built - you know, that one with the $134 million dollar SRF loan tied to it that your board threw away. The Water Board was serious with their threats of fines in 2003. They were serious in 2005 as you finally found out. Remember those CDOs that we can thank YOU for?

(And remember the $20 million bonds sold in 2002 to buy the property, design the project, and to pay for the permits. Those were flipped off by your board too - but not flipped off of our tax bills - they are still right on there every year.)

Setting all of that aside, let's get right on to the bankruptcy. First point, you poked a stick in the eye of the Water Board for not ASKING PERMISSION to stop the project. That was in the contract for the SRF $134 million loan. That lack of understanding ensured that your board would NOT get anymore payments from the state. Then you all went right off budget in October as soon as you were in office by hiring a new attorney, and new general manager ($450,000/year)—while you were paying the old GM and the old attorney to do nothing—AND you paid $75,000 to get rid of the public information officer. But that is small potatoes when you hired another attorney for $1.5 million! 

Where did you think the money would come from to pay for all of that? Well, we know where you found it - you took our tax money that we had paid for our bond payments, forcing the bond reserves to be spent that were to have been the last payment. Naturally, the lender raised a big stink about that, and we are STILL paying that money back! Our fire tax money had been spent too, so the CSD reserves were spent to cover us to keep our fire service.

So where did our $450,000 water reserves go? MIA. That was never paid back.  It was written off by General Manager Kivley in 2015. No wonder you went after her with a vengeance - she knew what your board did!

Anyway, your rewriting of history is always rather amazing to read. Thanks for the opportunity to set the record straight—again.

Sewage Politics

I won't pretend to not be concerned about the future of the LOCSD, my husband is a candidate this election cycle and I was one myself back in 2006. I have been blogging about things sewer and the LOCSD since 2006. But a FALSE narrative has been circulating in the community about a certain candidate's forum which was held October 10 at the South Bay Community Center. It was organized by Keith Swanson. 

I can't speak for any candidate, attendees or not, but I can speak on the topic of why the program has not aired on Channel 20. There are a lot of garbage-y reasons floating around regarding this this, slamming incumbent candidate directors and the LOCSD's General Manager. Pure political BUNK. There is a legal reason preventing airing the forum. You probably already know that the office of Director for LOCSD is non-partisan.

Last night at the Emergency Services Advisory Committee, Director Michael Wright gave the background on why it was not aired.

The gist was this: The proposal to air the show came into the LOCSD office to the General Manager Kathy Kivley. She has not been in the District long enough to go through an election cycle, but knew when you don't know something, you look up what the rules are. She found a rule on the District's books that the LOCSD itself can't be involved in sponsoring something that involves a political party. The Grass Roots Dems supplied a moderator, and they are registered as an actual political pac. Other forums have used the non-political League of Women Voters to moderate. Of course this decision was not made without consulting LOCSD legal counsel Mike Seitz.

The Board can agendize this issue, discuss it and even modify the rule, but as it stands now, it is up to the Directors to do something, NOT staff, and it needs to go onto a LOCSD meeting agenda. So, established legal principles and binding agreements were honored. As they should be.

Footnote: What inspired me in part to write this entry was an inaccurate and purely speculative letter in the Bay News, "Dirty Politics in Los Osos," by Keith Swanson's Campaign Treasurer, Jerri Walsh. 

Upon further digging on this topic, and remembering event organizer Mr. Swanson's E-mail early on to the candidates mentioning co-sponsorship by the Grass Roots Dems (and that was mentioned again at the Emergency Services Committee meeting on Wednesday night), it would seem that the FPPC deems that when a partisan group sponsors (co-sponsors, in this case) an event, unless the candidates themselves pay for this event (which they DID NOT), this constitutes a contribution to a candidate. The CSD is not a partisan entity and can't make contributions to partisan groups, which airing the event would be. Sorry Mr. Swanson, but those are the rules.

I wonder why the League of Women Voters was not contacted, or the Latino Outreach Council? Oh wait, Mr. Swanson mentioned it himself, those groups DON'T sponsor events like this—they only MODERATE them!

I guess getting this done was very important to Mr. Swanson and he should be glad anyone with a computer can access the event on YouTube, which actually reaches more households than cable TV service's Channel 20. But in getting so nasty as he did at the ESAC meeting and on his recent appearance on Dave Congalton's radio show, he erased any goodwill he may have garnered from his participation in the forum and by the ESAC meeting participants. He has unfortunately also pointed out how little he knows on FPPC rules which all candidates must abide by. If his unprofessional and rude treatment of staff now, in this case Ms. Kivley, who must thread the needle between rules and the instructions from the Board, is anything like his manner toward staff if elected, good luck to all in our CSD office.

The Gang That Couldn't Poop Straight

Well, you knew THAT title was going to appear here someday, didn't you!?

Defining "straight" in this case refers to being honest, being forthright, being open. "Poop" refers to work product, or in this case, the deflection thereof.

Much has been made over many months from the usual and long-standing sewer detractors about our sewer facilitators NOT being "transparent," and of our sewer project having "NO oversight!" Paavo Ogren, our soon-to-depart Director of Public Works (he is going to work in Oceano and will wear many hats there) has been accused of subterfuge, and our newly re-elected-by-a-landslide District 2 Supervisor Bruce Gibson has been hammered with accusations of mistruths as well. These are untrue accusations of course, but when you believe something strongly as these people do, you don't let facts get in the way.

I have been inspired by two things to write this column, the word "transparency" (thanks sewer detractors!), AND what Los Osos' new General Manager Kathy Kivley has been doing lately, that is, going through all of the old journal entries in the books and wading into the long misunderstood finances (by the public) to get a true accounting of what the District has, what it owes, and even what it owes to itself. So I have been doing a little financial sleuthing of my own, because as far as transparency goes, a nasty net of sludge covered what was going on with the District's finances starting on September 27, 2005. Nasty enough to get the SLO County Grand Jury involved back in 2006.

In fact, you really should read what was said in the Grand Jury Report about Los Osos. Start on page 77 of the report on Los Osos:
http://slocourts.net/downloads/grand_jury/reports/2005/final-2005-2006.pdf

Basically, the Grand Jury wanted to investigate if public funds, namely LOCSD funds, were used by the post-Recall LOCSD Board members* to pay off a law firm hired by a citizen's group, CCLO (Concerned Citizens of Los Osos) and Al Barrow (CASE - Citizens for an Affordable and Safe Environment) that had sued the LOCSD and the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board and crafted Measure B (which stopped the sewer—but was later found to be invalid). All five post-Recall sitting directors had been heavily involved with the group suing the LOCSD and the Water Board, and in crafting and defending Measure B. This law firm (Burke, Williams and Sorenson, or BWS) was then hired by the LOCSD after the payoff. The settlement amount of the five cases was $488,617.

The Grand Jury wanted to see detailed time logs and billing records of the law firm and requested these documents through the SLO County Counsel's office—twice. What they got back was nothing the first time and the second time the documents were so heavily redacted it was impossible to determine anything. Billable tasks were left blank. Why? one would ask if you had nothing to hide?

These settlement negotiations were conducted in the Board's closed session meetings. They were handled between an attorney representing the LOCSD and an attorney from BWS.The post-Recall Board was given a single-settlement dollar amount. They were "...not offered, nor did they request any detailed information on the breakdown as to what activities were billed and included in the settlement amounts." Also, a Board member said to the Grand Jury that they wanted to settle the cases so that they could retain BWS for future work.

The Grand Jury felt that since public funds were used to settle the lawsuits, the public has a right to know just what legal services were rendered when.

Why wouldn't the Board want to see what they were being asked to settle? What public input or oversight was there? Where was the transparency in what they were doing?

Those questions still remain, along with an icky feeling of being had, either by stupidity or just plain dirty dealings. The Citizen's groups, CCLO and CASE could well have gotten nothing. The Grand Jury was stymied and never got us the answers we deserved.

In fact, CASE and BWS were stiffed later. They were among the 20 largest claims in the Bankruptcy and got pennies on the dollar:

So then a question remains.....where did all the money go that the LOCSD borrowed from reserves as GM Kivley has found, and "borrowed" from our tax monies for the CDF Fire tax payment and the Bond payment to Bank of New York?



If you are interested in reading the LOCSD's finely crafted response to the Grand Jury (by BWS's Julie Biggs, no doubt), it is on pages 29-33:
http://slocourts.net/downloads/grand_jury/reports/2005/responses-2005-2006.pdf

* The LOCSD Board was: Lisa Schicker, Julie Tacker, Chuck Cesena, John Fouche, Steve Senet.

Riverside Sewer Woes Echo Here

Perhaps of interest to some of us who have followed Riverside's sewer issues:

http://www.pe.com/articles/sewer-695737-city-audit.html

Several city critics have repeatedly alleged the city improperly spent earlier sewer bond money and illegally made loans from the sewer fund to other city funds.

To address that concern, council members voted Tuesday, June 3, to ask their new outside audit firm to do a special audit of sewer fund transactions between 2000 to 2014, including use of loans and bond money.

It looks to mirror what is coming to light here again in Los Osos with the books at long last being put in order by our finance-minded new GM, Kathy Kivley.

In my opinion, the truly poor management decisions by the Recall board starting in October of 2005, plus reduced staffing due to the resultant bankruptcy, has caused financial and water problems since late 2005. So much sewer Sturm und Drang* has blocked the District from moving forward to solve its problems in any significant way!

General Manager Kivley has discovered a board resolution from May 4, 2006 that transferred $410,000 out from Fund 500 Water to fund "wastewater project studies." That money was to have been paid back into the Water fund at the same interest rate that the district gets on its investment funds. Needless to say, that has NOT happened.

She also reports a transfer out of the Solid Waste Fund 650 of $220,000 in 2006 for "wastewater project studies." This loan may also require repayment; staff is looking into when and if the funds were transferred.

You can look at GM Kivley's comments in this year's CSD budget at this link (it is a large file and loads slowly):
http://www.losososcsd.org/Library/2014%20Agenda%20Packet/06.05.14%20Agenda%20Packet/Agenda%20Item%207B%20Fiscal%20Year%202014-2015%20Budget.pdf

Also in 2006, our tax funds from the County that had been given to the LOCSD and set aside in April of 2006 to pay the old 2002 sewer bond, some $714,267.50 of tax monies, were gone by July 2006, so that payment could only be made by in dipping into the forbidden-to-used-by-contract reserve fund, the de facto "last month's rent" so to speak, to be left alone as the last bond payment. It was by agreement with Bank of New York to be repaid within one year. Being broke and in bankruptcy however, that money is being repaid at the rate of $25,000 a year, seemingly forever.

A quote from then CSD Director Joe Sparks from 2007 (this was originally published in the Tribune, but as accessing this now would cost money, I will provide a link to the entire text as copied into Ann Calhoun's blog, dated 8-6-2007, link),

The District has no full-time or permanent General Manager, even though the LOCSD Board had the opportunity three months ago to hire from multiple qualified candidates. 

The District has yet to re-pay approximately $400,000 borrowed from the Water Quality Trust Fund to fund the 2006 Ripley report, and Ripley remains a major creditor in the District’s Bankruptcy proceedings. 

The District has yet to re-pay approximately $700,000 that was borrowed from the Bond Reserve Fund to make a Bond Redemption payment because the District had insufficient funds to make the payment on September 1, 2006. From the period of October 2005 until April 2006, approximately $1,100,000 in assessment revenue (District General Ledger 4061) was deposited in District accounts for the purpose of making the September 1, 2006 Bond Redemption payment, yet those funds were not available to make the payment.

One of the commenters on this blog posting, former LOCSD Director Richard LeGros, wrote on that missing bond money,

Why was this "loan" not reviewed and approved by the LOCSD board in public, as required by law? 

Where did all this money go? The one wastewater study that came out, the Ripley report, that contract was for only around $500,000 and $100,000 of that total was a claim in the bankruptcy. Was all this money really moved to fund "wastewater project studies," or did it really go to attorneys in an useless attempt to defend against the indefensible? When the financial entries are all found and entered, will the books finally balance?

So  here we are in 2014, getting to the bottom of the financial mess the Recall Election put into motion. No, it wasn't really the recall itself, it didn't have to come to this, but the bad, no terrible, terrible decisions by the newly composed board, made it impossible to avoid.


*French Neoclassicism, a movement beginning in the early Baroque, with its emphasis on the rational, was the principal target of rebellion for adherents of the Sturm und Drang movement. Sentimentality and an objective view of life gave way to emotional turbulence and individuality. Enlightenment ideals of rationalism, empiricism, and universalism no longer captured the human condition; emotional extremes and subjectivity became the vogue during the Counter-Enlightenment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturm_und_Drang