Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Deja Vu All Over Again -- The Trib's Idea of Newsworthiness

I don't know... maybe it's just me.

Maybe I'm wrong about what is newsworthy, and the Tribune is right, because one of us has got to be wrong.

For example, I thought it was newsworthy when a proposed sewer project -- developed by a small citizen's group in Los Osos, and sold to voters as "better, cheaper, faster," and was responsible for getting the CSD formed in the first place in 1998 -- failed in 2000. Its failure marked a $5 million waste to county taxpayers, because they got stuck with the tab for the project that "better, cheaper, faster" replaced.

To me, all of that was newsworthy. To the Tribune, it wasn't. None of it. That's the only reason I can think of why they have never written a word on the apparently important -- to me and New Times at least -- failure of the Solution Group's heavily marketed, yet dead-on-arrival project.

These days, the Trib has me questioning my idea of newsworthiness again.

Just a few weeks ago, the Los Osos CSD Board rescinded a little-known, 2001 document called the "Statement of Overriding Considerations."

The document, it turns out, is a bombshell.

It's a simple, 4-page document that was drafted and adopted by the 2001 Board, and it completely overrode the seemingly important environmental review process. The environmental review process for the Los Osos sewer showed that treatment facility sites out of town were "environmentally preferable," and therefore, the Board was required by state law to choose one of those sites, unless they quickly and quietly adopted a "Statement of Overriding Considerations," which they promptly did. The SOC is the sole document that locks in Tri-W.

It also turns out that the rationale behind the "Statement of Overriding Considerations" doesn't hold a drop of water. It's completely invalid.

Furthermore, since the SOC was recently rescinded by the District, there are now some serious lingering questions... with some serious implications.

Like:

"Is it now a violation of state environmental law to build at Tri-W considering there's now nothing around to override those laws?"

and;

"Was the Regional Water Quality Control Board aware of the SOC when one of their staff members wrote in a recent letter to the District:
    WARNING REGARDING SALE OF TRI-W SITE, LOS OSOS

    Your August 3, 2006 meeting agenda indicates that you are considering sale of the Tri-W site, an attempt to negate the Community Services District's previous environmental approval process for its selected project..."?

(Quick memo to the RWQCB: You might want to put the kabash on future references to the "Community Services District's previous environmental approval process." After all, they did decide to override that process -- a process that pointed to out-of-town, downwind sites, and I know you guys aren't down with those sites.)

To me, all of that is newsworthy, that's why I wrote a huge piece on it.

And again (again!) the Trib just doesn't seem to share my idea of newsworthiness. It's been about a month since the District rescinded the SOC, and the Trib has yet to write a word on it.

Deja vu all over again.

That's why I wrote the following letter to the Tribune's executive editor, Sandra Duerr:

    8/28/06

    Hello Mrs. Duerr,

    Recently, the Los Osos CSD Board of Directors rescinded a 2001 document titled, the "Statement of Overriding Considerations."

    That document was drafted and adopted by the 2001 LOCSD Board, and it overrode the entire environmental review process for the siting of the treatment facility in the Los Osos sewer project -- a process that showed that out-of-town sites were "environmentally preferred" because most have been environmentally degraded due to decades of agricultural use, unlike Tri-W.

    The 2001 LOCSD Directors decided to override the environmental review process with their SOC, and that decision locked in Tri-W for their second project. (Their first project was a ponding system that was also proposed for Tri-W. That project failed in 2000, yet it was highly influential in establishing the CSD in 1998.)

    Additionally, the two "benefits" listed in the SOC as the only reasons to override the environmental review process for their second treatment facility -- a facility that required exactly ten times less land than their first treatment facility -- are clearly invalid.

    I wrote on the SOC, why it is invalid, and the dramatic effect it had on the entire LO sewer story here:
    http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2006/08/loopiest-of-loopholes-recently.html
    (Please scroll past my brief "pledge drive.")

    The recent action by the current CSD Board to rescind the SOC is extremely newsworthy and timely, yet I have not seen a story on it in your paper.

    Here are my questions:

    Is your paper planning on covering that extremely newsworthy and timely story?

    and;

    If not, why not?

    Thank you,
    Ron
    sewerwatch.blogspot.com


Mrs. Duerr has yet to reply. I also "cc'd" my letter to several other Trib staffers, and none of them have replied.

If you would like to contact Mrs. Duerr and ask her if they plan on covering this seemingly newsworthy and timely story, you can e-mail her here: sduerr@thetribunenews.com.

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(By the way, the SewerWatch Fall Pledge Drive is still going on [details below]. THANK YOU so much to those that have taken the time to support independent journalism!)

Thursday, August 17, 2006

The Loopiest of Loopholes -- Recently Uncovered CSD Document Overrides the Entire Tri-W Environmental Review Process

"Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud"
- Sophocles

Of all the ridiculous government regulations out there, I think I may have recently stumbled upon the most ridiculous. The loopiest of loopholes.

Currently, in California, it's perfectly o.k. for governmental agencies to go through an entire environmental review process -- months, if not years, of careful study and analysis, all in an effort to determine, as required by state law, the least environmentally harmful way to proceed on a huge public works project, like the Los Osos sewer -- and everything involved in that environmental review process can simply be tossed out the window at the end of the process if said governmental agency just doesn't happen to agree with the least environmentally harmful way to proceed.

All that agency has to do is pop out one, quick, illogical and unsubstantiated, 4-page document known as the Statement of Overriding Considerations (SOC), and, poof, the extensive, expensive, and seemingly important environmental review process goes up in smoke.

Los Osos, take one guess on what happened with your community.

According to California's environmental review process, "If the (environmental) impacts (of the project) are not mitigated to a level below significance, and the (governmental agency) wishes to approve the project, it would also be necessary to adopt a Statement of Overriding Considerations indicating that the benefits of a proposed project outweigh the unavoidable adverse environmental effects."

It's that simple... just indicate a couple of "benefits," and bye-bye environmental review process. And that's exactly what the 2001 Los Osos CSD Board -- a board that really "wished to approve" the Tri-W project -- did.

So, what "benefits" did the 2001 Los Osos CSD Board claim in their Statement of Overriding Considerations that outweighed "the unavoidable adverse environmental effects" of the Tri-W project?

After a lengthy list of objectives, all but one of which could have been achieved with an out-of-town site, the SOC boils down the rationale behind the Tri-W selection to this:

    An in-town site (Tri-W) was chosen over other locations because:

    - It results in the lowest cost for the collection system by centrally locating the treatment facility within the area served: and

    - It enables the treatment plant site to provide open space centrally located and accessible to the citizens of Los Osos;"

And that's it... the reasons stop there. Just those two are listed. And that's all it took to toss the entire environmental review process for the Tri-W project out of the window, a process that showed that sites downwind of Los Osos were "environmentally preferred," and therefore the District was legally obligated to choose one of those sites, unless, of course, they decided to pop out a SOC... which they promptly did.

Let's quickly analyze the first "benefit":

- It results in the lowest cost for the collection system by centrally locating the treatment facility within the area served.

That's the worst logic I have ever seen in an official government document, and it's amazing it got as far as it did. It's a textbook example of "penny wise, pound foolish" reasoning.

Simply geometry tells us that the cost of 95-percent of the collection system would have been the exact same regardless of where the facility was located. The only added expense to the collection system for a downwind, out-of-town, environmentally preferred (and required by state law, unless, of course, you pop out a SOC), and much less expensive site, according to CSD documents, would have been for a small, one-acre, centrally located pumping station at Tri-W, and the extra pipe to take the effluent a mile or two out of town to the main treatment facility. The cost of the pumping station and extra pipe was estimated by the CSD, in 2004, at $2 million.

Furthermore, according to official CSD documents, the cost of the extra electricity needed to pump everything out of town was estimated at about $20,000 a year.

All combined, the above mentioned costs don't even come close, not even close, to touching the tens of millions of dollars needed to accommodate an in-town sewer plant. The land cost alone, including the large chunk of land -- the Broderson site -- that was purchased for mitigation purposes because of the environmentally sensitive nature of Tri-W, added about $7 million to the project when compared to the cost of lots out of town -- most of which are already environmentally degraded through decades of agricultural use, and therefore would require much less environmental mitigation, if any at all.

That $7 million alone, using straight numbers, would have paid for roughly 350 years of the extra cost needed to pump the effluent two miles out of town, according to CSD estimates. The $2.3 million of SRF money slated for the "decorative" park amenities in the Tri-W project would have paid for another 115 years. Solar energy will almost certainly lower the pumping costs dramatically in just a few years.

All of that adds up to one unmistakable conclusion: One of the only two "benefits" why "an in-town site was chosen over other locations," and indicated that the benefits of the Tri-W project outweighed its "unavoidable adverse environmental effects," doesn't hold a drop of water. It makes no sense whatsoever. Deeply, deeply flawed logic.

Which means we now have this:

"- It enables the treatment plant site to provide open space centrally located and accessible to the citizens of Los Osos;"

as the only reason why the environmental review process was completely overridden by the 2001 Los Osos Community Services District, and "an in-town site was chosen over other locations."

Clearly, according to official CSD documents, the Tri-W project was never a wastewater project that included a public park, but instead, according to the SOC, it was a public park project that included a sewer plant. Therefore, according to the brilliant State Revolving Fund Policy, since the park was dictating the location, the only portion of the project that should have been covered by public SRF money, were the wastewater facilities themselves. Not the odor scrubbing facilities needed due to the park's central location. Not the decorative and expensive "Wave Wall," and definitely not the $2.3 million worth of public park amenities planned for the site. However, the state had approved funding for all of that, in direct defiance of their own policies.

Further convoluting things for the only reason "an in-town site was chosen over other locations," is that not only is there absolutely no documentation whatsoever to support the concept that the community of Los Osos wanted their sewer plant to double as a centrally located "recreational asset" in the first place, there is an abundance of strong and credible evidence, like election results, that the community, obviously, never wanted an expensive, elaborate, public park in their sewer plant, as SewerWatch has repeatedly reported.

However, despite all of that excellent evidence, the SOC reads:

    These stated objectives underscore the community's desire [bolding mine] to balance compliance with the requirements of the RWQCB with other community goals such as... making the project affordable to all income groups and providing much-needed open space.

That statement can not be supported, period. Not through official sources. Not through polling results. And, most importantly, not through election results. In short, the community never "desired" that "balance" -- a balance, by the way, that would quickly shift from "providing much-needed open space" to providing an amphitheater, community gardens, dog park, play fields, tot lot, picnic areas, public restroom, public parking lot, etc., to the tune of several million dollars -- yet, that "balance," according to the SOC, was the only reason "an in-town site was chosen over other locations."

As for, "making the project affordable to all income groups," the Tri-W project would have been the most expensive sewer project per capita in the history of the Untied States.

Wow.

The Statement of Overriding Considerations would prove to be the one document that ensured that the 2000 LOCSD's vastly redesigned second sewer project -- a project that required exactly ten times less land for the treatment facility than their first failed project -- would not be built at a "environmentally preferred" location, as required by state law, but instead, also be located at the same location as their first flawed project, the Solution Group's "Community Plan." That project was directly responsible for establishing the CSD in 1998, and got three Solution Group members elected, including their marketing director, Pandora Nash-Karner. Nash-Karner is also a long-time, and current, SLO County Parks Commissioner.

Interestingly, the 2001 Statement of Overriding Considerations was recently, quietly and understandably, rescinded by the current CSD Board (that's how I found out about it), a move that would appear to make any future project at Tri-W illegal. Without a SOC, then there's nothing in the Final EIR to "outweigh the unavoidable adverse environmental effects" of the Tri-W project. To build there now would be a violation of CEQA, it appears.

For me, the really serious and troubling fall-out of the LOCSD's Statement of Overriding Considerations -- even above the fact that it doesn't hold a drop of water -- is that it marks the third, third, distinct, highly documentable, invalid, yet successful attempt by the Solution Group and the early CSD Boards to use any means necessary to ensure that a wastewater facility with park amenities is built at Tri-W.

The first attempt was in 1998 and involved the Solution Group and their Community Plan -- a plan that was heavily marketed throughout Los Osos as "better, cheaper, faster," with a "maximum monthly payment of $38.75." However, at the exact same time of those marketing efforts, several water quality professionals and officials were telling the Solution Group, before the election that formed the CSD in 1998, that the Community Plan was not going to work in Los Osos.

Two years later, after the CSD formed on the back of "better, cheaper, faster," "better, cheaper, faster" didn't work... just like all those water quality professionals and officials accurately predicted.

The local media (save, me) blacked out on that crucial story, and the CSD was quietly able to move forward with Tri-W.

Invalid, yet successful attempt #1.

The second successful, yet invalid (and, likely, illegal), attempt to ensure that a wastewater facility with park amenities is built at Tri-W using any means necessary, was the Statement of Overriding Considerations in 2001.

Check out the time-line:

Just a few months after the Community Plan crashed and burned, predictably, and while the RWQCB was threatening fines in 2000, the LOCSD, led by a Solution Group majority, scrambles to throw together an environmental review process for some type of new project (at that point, the Community Plan was in ashes, and they had to come up with something. The pressure was on.)

So, beginning in late 2000, they launch into a hasty environmental review process that results in a Final Environmental Impact Report by February, 2001. That EIR clearly shows that sites downwind and out-of-town, are "environmentally preferred" because the land on the outskirts of town has been degraded through decades of agricultural use, unlike Tri-W.

At that point, the District was obligated by CEQA (state law) to chose one of those "environmentally preferred" sites.

(Note: There were several potential out-of-town sites that could have been considered, however the district only studied three due to the hastiness of the environmental review process. Interestingly, just studying those three would prove to be a complete waste of time and money considering the overriding reason for the in-town site was its central location. It makes no sense to study out-of-town sites when the overriding consideration for the preferred site is a "project objective for centrally located community amenities." Why study out-of-town sites at all? That makes no sense.)

However, if they had chosen one of those cheaper, downwind, out-of-town, and "environmentally preferred" sites, as required by state law, it would have revealed that the project that got them elected and the CSD formed, had failed. It also would have moved the plant off of Tri-W, and the park amenities would have been removed from the project.

How did they wiggle off that one? Easy. All it took was one simple, illogical, unsubstantiated, four-page document that I could've knocked out in an afternoon -- the Statement of Overriding Considerations. And that was it. That document instantly overrode the entire, albeit hasty, environmental review process, and, unfortunately for Los Osos and California taxpayers, unnecessarily kept the CSD's second, and completely different, sewer plant at Tri-W. As I've shown above, there were no logical reasons to keep the second project at Tri-W. None. It could have been moved, and state law demanded it.

The CSD jumped right through that giant loophole and was quietly able to move forward with Tri-W.

Invalid, yet successful attempt #2.

The third successful, yet invalid (and, likely, illegal) attempt to ensure that a wastewater facility with park amenities is built at Tri-W using any means necessary, was the now infamous "bait-and-switchy" move the early CSD Boards played on the California Coastal Commission from 2001 - 2004.

That's when the early CSD Boards convinced the Commission that the sewer plant had to be built at the environmentally sensitive Tri-W site because there was a "strongly held community value" that any sewer plant in Los Osos must also double as a centrally located "recreational asset," complete with an amphitheater, picnic grounds, play fields, a tot-lot, public restrooms, and a lot more.

The Commission bit at the bait, even though there is absolutely no documentation at all to support that extraordinary claim, and reluctantly signed off on the environmentally sensitive Tri-W site, but not before they had to go through an extensive and expensive process to legally allow a sewer plant in the middle of Los Osos -- a process that included dramatically amending the Local Coastal Plan to reflect the extensive zoning changes required for such a project.

Two years later, in 2004, after the LOCSD went about their sneaky little business, the Commission discovered that the park that the community so "strongly" desired, and had locked in the Tri-W selection in the first place, and had led to the Commission's extensive effort to amend the LCP, had been ripped out of the plan almost entirely by District officials, because they never accounted for one dime to pay for the expensive park. Apparently, the park was just a ruse to lock in Tri-W, again, and it worked, again.

And that's when an understandably fed-up Commissioner, Dave Potter, called the lot of them, "bait and switchy." A brilliant, and pin-point-accurate observation.

The District's directors voted to "reincorporate" the $2.3 million worth of park amenities shortly thereafter, and moved forward with Tri-W.

Invalid, yet successful attempt #3.

These days, of course, the Commission is now aware that that "strongly held community value" never existed in the first place, and, understandably, they're mad... and they should be. They were tricked into amending the Local Coastal Plan in 2002 and, against all their policies, allowed development on protected Environmentally Sensitive Habitat for no reason at all.

In essence, that "strongly held community value" served the exact same purpose as the Statement of Overriding Considerations -- it was the only thing at the time that could keep on track a sewer plant with park amenities at Tri-W, and they were both invalid.

I have two questions:

1) Why do the handful of people that have guided a sewer plant with park amenities at Tri-W since 1998 -- using any means necessary -- so desperately want a sewer plant with park amenities at Tri-W?

and;

2) For God's sake, what does it take to get the Grand Jury to look into this?

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Thursday, August 03, 2006

As the Revolving Door Spins

The revolving door spins again at The Tribune.

Short-lived Trib reporter, Abraham Hyatt, has called it quits. Hyatt marks, oh, I don't know, maybe the fiftieth reporter that has gone through the Trib's revolving door on the Los Osos beat over the last decade.

In a recent e-mail to "sources, contacts, and friends," Hyatt writes:

    "August 18 will be my last day at The Tribune." He adds, "While brief, this has been a wild ride of a job. And I want to thank all of the people who helped me cover Los Osos over the last 10 months.

    The reason for my departure is simple: My wife and I had been planning to move to Portland Ore. near the end of this year. However, because of several personal factors, we're going to leave early. Nothing exciting, no conspiracy, just a couple of newly weds looking for a more affordable place to settle."

Fair enough, and SewerWatch wishes him, and his family, all the best.

But tagged on to his "I'm outta here" e-mail is this:

    "... this has also been the most fascinating, interesting work I have ever done -- work I could not have done without your willingness to share your knowledge, and be patience with my
    mistakes."

Abe... I hate to say this, because I think you were one of the better fifty (it's your editors that need a flogging), but you made one more tiny mistake on your way out the revolving door.

In his story: Los Osos officials sue regional water board (8/03/06), Hyatt writes:

    "In 2000, the regional water board told Los Osos it would impose fines if the district did not adhere to a set schedule as it built a sewer mandated by the board.

    The district stopped construction on that sewer following last September’s recall election that replaced a majority of board members with opponents of the project."

That's a mistake I see a lot in the local press, and it's a critical one.

Memo to all local media: We need to get something straight here. The project in 2000 -- the ponding system -- was a completely different project, that used completely different technology, than "that project" that the district stopped in 2005. They were two different projects. The district stopped the second Tri-W project, and that project had nothing to do with the initially proposed "better, cheaper, faster" ponds, other than the treatment facility location.

But Hyatt is right about one thing. The RWQCB did threaten fines in 2000.

For me, the episode of the RWQCB threatening fines in 2000 is one of my favorite parts of the entire sewer story. That's when Briggs and Co. were gettin' really fed up with the LOCSD monkeying around with "Pandoraland" -- the widely criticized ponding project, also proposed at Tri-W, that the initial CSD Board futilely chased from 1999 to late 2000. That Board was finally forced to dump that ill-conceived project due to the pressure of potential fines from the RWQCB in 2000... because it simply wasn't going to work in Los Osos, as a bunch of water quality professionals, including the RWQCB, accurately predicted two years earlier.

Beautiful part of the story. Beautiful.

And, for whatever reason, the Trib just can't grasp it. They can't grasp the simple, yet crucial, notion that the latest Tri-W project wasn't even close to the first Tri-W project that formed the CSD in the first place. After all these years... can't grasp it. Hmmm.

Here's my take on that: These days, the Trib can't cover the fact that the project that got three Solution Group members elected to the initial Board, and the CSD established in the first place, in 1998, flamed out in spectacular fashion in late 2000. They can't mention that unbelievably critical time in this story, because if they did, the first thing everyone would say is, "Where in the hell where you on all of that!!?"

They never wrote a word on it, even though I wrote a New Times cover story at the time that showed exactly why it was going down the toilet.

On a related topic, I've noticed that Tri-W proponents still get a lot of mileage out of the, "The new board stopped a project that was fully funded and fully permitted" argument.

That argument is as dead as a ground squirrel on Pozo Road.

According to state law, it should have been neither. It was a huge mistake by two state agencies to permit and fund that nonsensical project.

According to the Coastal Act, the set of laws that governs the California Coastal Commission, the second Tri-W project should have not been permitted, because the Coastal Act prohibits the destruction of Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area for no reason whatsoever (well, to be fair, no reason other than a non-existent "community value" that was fabricated in a successful attempt to keep the second project at Tri-W).

And according to the State Revolving Fund Policy, it should have not been financed because that policy so wisely states that "decorative items" are not eligible for SRF funding, yet the State Water Resources Control Board's Division of Financial Assistance had approved funding for, among other things, an amphitheater, community gardens, dog park, play fields and a huge "decorative Wave Wall." And (and this is very important) if those park amenities had not been slated for SRF funding -- and it's a slap to the face of every taxpayer in the state that they were -- the entire funding plan of the Tri-W project would have collapsed, because the LOCSD did not have any money to pay for that expensive and elaborate park, and, according to the project's development permit, the park was the only reason why Tri-W was selected for the second project. (page 89)

According to numerous official documents, Tri-W was permitted and funded because both the California Coastal Commission, and the SWRCB Division of Financial Assistance were "duped" into permitting and funding that unnecessarily sited, unnecessarily expensive, environmental lemon by the actions of the initial CSD Board and staff, including several after they had left office, as I have been reporting since my second New Times cover story, Three Blocks Upwind of Downtown, in September, 2004. (Note: I can no longer link directly to the New Times on-line version of that story because the archived stories on their web site were recently changed. They now stop at the issue that was published one week after Three Blocks. Now, I have to link to my personal version of that story.)

Memo to those that still cling to the, "The Tri-W project was fully funded and permitted," argument: That argument is dead.

That "project" was about an hour's worth of official argumentation away from being unfunded and un-permitted. In short, un-duped.

Los Osos and California taxpayers lucked out last September when the recall was successful. Dodged a bullet.

This blog site's arguments were not going away. If the recall had not been successful last fall, all of what I have been reporting on over the past two years, would have eventually come out. And the Tri-Dub development permit would have been revoked -- state law would have demanded it -- and the SRF funds would have stopped until the "decorative items" mess was straightened out, and that would have led to a funding nightmare, and the ill-conceived and nonsensically sited (and I'll even argue illegally sited) Tri-W project would have wasted tens of millions more of California taxpayer dollars, and Los Osos would have had a half-built, fleece-job in the middle of their town, and the public outcry outside of Los Osos, when the rest of California finally discovered they were funding millions upon millions of dollars worth of public park crap for a "sewer-park" for Los Osos, while communities like Mariposa, and a lot of other cash-strapped California communities, couldn't get a penny of SRF funding for their bare bones, reality-based wastewater treatment facilities, would have been deafening.

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Cleaning Out the SewerWatch Notebook

Speaking of "duped"... here's a short opinion piece I wrote to New Times following staff writer, Patrick Klemz's, Eight square miles, surrounded by reality a couple weeks back... they didn't print it. I will:

What New Times Calls "Duped," I Call Fraud

In Patrick Klemz's clever commentary, Eight square miles, surrounded by reality, he writes:

"CSD vice chair Pandora Nash-Karner duped Coastal Commission staff into believing the town demanded recreational facilities onsite with any proposed treatment facility..."

What Mr. Klemz calls "duped," I call fraud... on a massive scale.

Lying to the Coastal Commission about very important things, like the only reason to unnecessarily force a large and very expensive sewer plant in the middle of a beautiful coastal town, is serious stuff.

According to a law-related web site, "Fraud has a specific legal meaning." The following essential elements must be present before an actual finding of fraud will occur:

- Misrepresentation of a material fact consisting of a false representation, concealment or non-disclosure. (Nash-Karner, beginning in late 2000, as the Los Osos CSD vice chair and SLO County Parks Commissioner, told Coastal Commission staff that residents demanded park facilities in any sewer plant in Los Osos. Astonishingly, one Coastal Commission document reads, "These facilities, which include a 15 space public parking lot and drop off area, an amphitheater, community gardens, restroom, tot-lot, and picnic areas, factored into the previous decision to allow the treatment facility to be located on this site (Tri-W), since other alternatives were rejected on the basis that they did not accomplish project objectives for centrally located community amenities." [bolding mine])

- Knowledge of the falsity. (Nash-Karner spearheaded two 1997 ballot measures in Los Osos that would have added a tiny tax for public recreation stuff in Los Osos. Both of those measures failed. Just three years later, Nash-Karner, as an elected official, was telling the Coastal Commission that there was a "strongly held community value" in Los Osos that any sewer plant must also double as a centrally located "recreational asset." Furthermore, and most importantly, there is absolutely no documentation whatsoever to support that extraordinary claim. Commission staffer, Steve Monowitz, recently told me, "It was inappropriate of me to rely on members of the Solution Group to determine community values." Nash-Karner founded the Solution Group.)

- Intent to deceive and induce reliance. (The Solution Group promised Los Osos voters a "better, cheaper, faster" project in 1998. That promise led to the formation of the Los Osos Community Services District (two previous attempts failed) and got Nash-Karner, and two other Solution Group members, recalled Directors, Stan Gustafson and Gordon Hensley, elected to the first CSD Board. That project was planned for Tri-W. That project failed two years later. If the location of the treatment facility in the project that followed their first failed project had changed to an out-of-town site, it would have revealed that the project that got them elected, and the CSD formed in the first place, had failed, and that would have been highly embarrassing for the Solution Group. Nash-Karner needed something to justify Tri-W for the vastly redesigned second project, and the fabricated "strongly held community value" was it... and it worked.)

- Justifiable and actual reliance on the misrepresentation. (See above evidence)

Mr. Klemz concludes, "if the CSD falls to rack and ruin now, and the sewer situation goes supernova once more, this columnist wants a Grand Jury investigation. And so should you."

This columnist formally requested a Grand Jury Investigation into this matter earlier this year. The Grand Jury responded that they didn't have time to investigate the issue.

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A final note: My last couple of posts dealt with the Los Osos Community swimming pool fiasco. Quick update: I have a lot of new stuff on that, and it's excellent. Stay tuned and see how fast that story slams right into the sewer story... in dramatic fashion.)

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