The Los Osos Syndrome

Okay, I just made that up. There isn't one. I watched The CHINA Syndrome...well, I guess at this hour it was LAST night right now. Great film from 1979 that holds up amazingly well. Jane Fonda, Jack Lemon, Michael Douglas. You probably know the story. A female TV news reporter given fluff stories stumbles onto a horrifying mishap at a nuclear power plant (the fictional Ventana nuclear power plant). Her videographer captures the accident when he should not have been filming, and the story unfolds from there. You can read more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Syndrome

The gist of the mishap was a welding flaw, a small part was not maintained, a pool of leaking radioactive water, a cover-up. There were a couple of glitches with gages, and without fast work, the mighty plant nearly explodes, which would have left a glowing, ticking ember of a large swath of California. The film was released 12 days before the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster.

We in Los Osos have just concluded the fight over a rate increase this past Tuesday, and comments about that are still bubbling along on Nextdoor. Yes, there is anger, defeat, panic, all that. In that frame of emotional intensity on a rate increase to maintain our sewer plant, I ran across this article on a shuttered nuclear power plant, San Onofre, that had a sewage spill due to a worn part and a lack of maintenance. I guess that is what we are trying to avoid in raising the rates to have enough money to do maintenance and replace worn out parts or machinery.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/story/2020-04-13/san-onofre-sewage-spill-linked-to-blocked-line-worn-out-pump-switch

Fortunately the only blow-ups around here were not radioactive. Nor, with the rate increase, are they likely to be a sewage spill either.

Sewer Rate Increase Passes!

It was an odd Board of Supes meeting. Three Los Osos Sewer items on the agenda for a meeting with no live audience. COVID-19 had conquered the in-person sewer angst audience displays. And it would take something of that magnitude to do so.

There were only letters read and phone calls, both recorded and live. Not one in support of raising the rates of course. Those voices made the silent, really silent, majority, so the rate hike passed.

There was quite a lot of tension. The vote was read and there was not enough votes to stop the rate increase. First, John Waddell had to give a report on the rate increase's necessity. (Silence from the online audience—now that was a first. Well, two firsts for a sewer meeting—online, and most especially the silence!) Then Supervisor Bruce Gibson laid out how he was approaching this. A similar rate increase had passed in Shandon, so he was going against the Staff Report, and insisting that Los Osos get the same time delay benefit to pay. There would be NO Board vote postponing the results of voting until the virus had vanished however, as the rate protestors had wanted. (Similar delay attempts had occurred on other sewer items in the past.) Gibson made a motion.

Supervisor Arnold was adamant that this "Shandon Delay" NOT be applied for Los Osos. The board had voted that way when they had no idea what these COVID-19 delays could mean. The board should NOT be so generous to Los Osos, the rest of the County should NOT be required to pick up the tab waiting for Los Osos to recover financially to PAY the new rates. 

Supervisors Compton and Peschong asked questions. Arnold reiterated her points as if a word hammer would move Gibson. It did not. County Counsel volunteered possible compromise positions. NOPE, both from Gibson and Arnold. This scene repeated too many times to make sense in a movie. Arnold attempted her own motion, and it failed to get a second.

Finally Gibson got Supervisor Hill's second. He had to restate the motion. 

"I move we find there is not a majority protest of the sewer service charge; that we adopt the ordinance and waive its reading; that we direct staff not to impose the increase until 30 days after the proclamation of local emergency has been lifted. We authorize the Clerk of the Board to get the certified copy of the approved ordinance and this other action to the Auditor/Controller/Tax Collector/Public Administrator no later than August 10th of 2020. We find the project exempt from CEQA."

All but Arnold voted YES!

And there is more I could write, but I am too lazy to look at my notes.

Sewer Rate Increase Protests On Nextdoor!

Nextdoor, the online over-the-backyard-fence news for neighborhoods in Los Osos (and thousands of other places), has SEVEN DIFFERENT current posts on protesting the rate increase for our water recycling facility! That must be a record on any single issue,even the Morro Bay sewer, at least from the posts that I was able to see! But people have learned that posts sink below the waves if not commented on frequently, so this feels like a new way to beat the game for exposure, keep posting new posts!

Alas, this pales mightily as compared to what went on during the Los Osos sewer war! Table sitting, flyers, blogs, comments below newspaper articles, TV - but then, that went on for years and people had time to organize. It will be interesting to see how this goes, if people do walk their neighborhoods with protest reprints and envelopes, and they do get this on the LOVR/South Bay Boulevard readerboard, and they do protest on that street corner. Stay tuned!

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.