Tom Ruehr Needs to Donate His $120.00/hour to the Prohibition Zone Legal Defense Fund

Los Osos resident Tom Ruehr's name comes up in three very interesting places, and his is the only name that shows up in all three places.

He was a member of the Solution Group from 1997-98. He was a member of the Los Osos Technical Task Force in 2004, and he is listed as a consultant on the current waste water project update.

Considering former Solution Group members comprised five of the first eight CSD Directors, including recently recalled directors Stan Gustafson and Gordon Hensley, and considering that the LOTTF strongly disagreed with former Solution Group member's ideas, AND considering the "new" CSD Board -- a board that also strongly disagrees with former Solution Group member's ideas -- hired an engineering firm that included a former Solution Group member, it appears that Ruehr has jumped ship.

And, as far as I know, he's the only former Solution Group member or follower to have jumped. Everyone else -- the Gustafsons, and Hensleys, and Nash-Karners, and Karners, and DiLeos, and Semonsens -- all of them, are still locked arm and arm. But not Ruehr. Why?

Here's my e-mail, and his response:
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Hello Dr. Ruehr,

I'm a freelance journalist researching a story on Los Osos, and I have just a couple of quick questions for you.

Listed as a career "highlight" of yours in the recent project update document from Mr. Ripley, it says:

"-- Served as a member of the Solutions (sic) Group with about 15 concerned citizens to develop a ponding system as exists in Arcata, California to treat the Los Osos waste water."

What happened to that ponding system? Was it pursued? If so, how did it turn out?

And:

Were you satisfied with the performance of the Solution Group?

Thanks,
Ron


Hello Ron,

Thank you for your inquiry.

It is inappropriate for me to comment now since I am working the the engineering firm to implement the sewer.

You need to contact Gary Karner who was the chair of the Solutions Group. He is the husband of Pandora Nash-Karner.

He should be able to provide you with an ear full of information.

He has favored the down town sewer location and has opposed the newest sewer redition as I understand.

Tom Ruehr

- - -
Personally, I find it unconscionable that anyone involved with the Solution Group would pull one penny of public funds for sewer related stuff in Los Osos.

Although Ruehr has apparently freed himself from the "compelling language" of the Solution Group, and I applaud him for that, it can not be overlooked that he also had a hand in creating the mess in Los Osos as a member of the Solution Group. And now taxpayers are about to pay him to help clean it up? Not on my watch.

So, SewerWatch is asking Dr. Ruehr to donate the $120-140/hour that he will be making as a consultant for the waste water project update to the Prohibition Zone Legal Defense Fund.

Dr. Ruehr, here's the address:

PZLDF
P.O. Box 6095
Los Osos, CA
93412


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On a completely unrelated topic, much like the sky is blue and water is wet, Noam Chomsky is f-ing brilliant.

Benefit BBQ for Los Osos Girl Swept Out to Sea

A benefit barbecue is scheduled for Alanna Williams, the 10-year-old Los Osos girl who survived being swept out to sea last February, on April 1, from 3:00 - 6:00 p.m. at the El Moro Nazarene church at the intersection of Santa Ysabel and South Bay Boulevard.

For only $8.00 you can get tri-tip or chicken dinners at the "drive-thru" bbq.

More info: 215-0789.

Along with the barbecue, a benefit is also planned by classmates of Alanna's. To help defray medical costs, the Baywood Elementary school band is joining forces with the Baywood Choir to present a benefit in Williams’ honor.

A “Love for Alanna” benefit concert will be held on Tuesday, March 28 at 7 p.m. at the school gym. The suggested donation is $5 at the door.

Donations in any amount may also be made to the Alanna Williams Benefit Account at Mid-State Bank & Trust branches throughout the county.

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Los Osos -- You Paid For It, You Should See It

Unlike the 2001 Los Osos Community Services District Board, SewerWatch believes that taxpayers in Los Osos should be privy to public documents, especially since those same taxpayers shelled out damn near $28,000 for said documents.

It took awhile, but I finally broke down and scanned in that amazing public opinion survey that the LOCSD commissioned in 2001 to gauge support for their sewer project. It's great, and very interesting.

You can download it here: Los Osos 2001 Public Opinion Survey.

Among many, many things, it shows a community that strongly supports a sewer system in Los Osos, and a community that was worried about fines from the Regional Water Quality Control Board. In short, a community that wants to do the right thing.

It also shows a confused community -- a community that was still largely under the impression that the Solution Group's "better, cheaper, faster" Community Plan was still on the table, even though that project crashed and burned months before the survey was conducted. But the confusion was understandable. According to the survey, Los Osos's main source of information at the time was the Tribune, and that was unfortunate, because the Trib did not write one story on the intensely newsworthy demise of the Community Plan in 2000, even though I had just written a New Times cover story chronicling it. (Hey Trib, quick question -- why didn't you do a public information request for this document? Ohhhhhhh yea, that's right, because it reveals that you guys had no idea what you were talking about last year when you were popping out editorials on Los Osos, including one on election day. So, I can understand why you wouldn't want to request this document. In fact, it makes perfect sense.)

Throughout the survey, there are leading and misleading questions and statements everywhere. So much so, that when you read through it, it gets blurry on whether the survey was commissioned to gauge public opinion on the sewer project, or whether it was used as campaign material (funded by Los Osos taxpayers) in an effort to sway an election.

"This measure is our last chance to approve a wastewater system for Los Osos."

"It builds a treatment facility that is completely covered and equipped with odor removal equipment."

"This measure includes funds to build a large park for the citizens of Los Osos. The park would include ballfields, a picnic area, gardens, walking paths, and amphitheater, and even constructed wetlands."

Even constructed wetlands? Wow. That's one sweet sewer plant!

'coupla questions on that one:

Why did they leave out the minor details that those "funds" would amount to $2.3 million just for the amenities, like the "constructed wetlands," and about $3 million, at least, in operation and maintenance costs over the next 20 years?

And another thing -- why didn't they follow-up their lovely description of the park with, "Oh, and by the way, that "large park" is also going to require a large piece of expensive land, and that large piece of expensive land is going to have to be in the middle of town so people can get to the "large park," so we're also going to have to add tens of millions of dollars to the project for expensive environmental mitigation, massive odor control, land costs, and lots of expensive visual mitigation because of the central location to accommodate the park."?

Why didn't the early CSD Board add that to their survey? I'll take a stab at the answer -- because if they had, 100-percent of the respondents would have said, "Are you out of your freaking mind!?"

Just curious... what percentage of the 53-percent of respondents that said they would be "much more inclined" to support the measure because it creates a park, would still have supported that idea if they had been apprised of those minor details?

There are so many notable items in the survey. Things will jump out at you that I haven't even touched upon -- things like attaching "special loans" to mortgages. Huh? Did that mean if a homeowner couldn't keep up with the $35 a month added to their mortgage by the "special loan," they would no longer be a homeowner? Just a thought.

But, without a doubt, my favorite part of the survey is where it asks:

"What is the most important issue that you would like to see local governments in the Los Osos area do something about?"

And from a list of answers, respondents said:
"Open space/park protections -- 1%"

That thin number was tucked away in that dusty document at the exact same time that the LOCSD was telling the California Coastal Commission, and printing in their Final Project Report, that there was a "strongly held community value" that any sewer plant in Los Osos must also double as a centrally located "recreational asset."

Naturally, Coastal Commission staff recently told SewerWatch that they were not aware of the survey, and that's too bad, because the Coastal Commission believed the CSD, and in 2002, reluctantly signed-off on the ESHA-filled, Tri-W site based solely on that "community value." And, of course, again, the Tribune did not cover any of that, even though I wrote another New Times cover story chronicling all of it. (Nice job, Trib... you're one hell of a "watchdog.")

However, the survey does show some good news for the ladies in Los Osos. The town has 6-percent more men than women, at least that was the case in 2001.

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The "Prohibition Zone Legal Defense Fund"

I realize that throwing more money at attorney fees is probably the last thing the fine folks in Los Osos feel like doing these days, but in this case, it just might prevent a "penny wise, pound foolish" scenario.

A group of residents that were served with individual CDOs have started a "Prohibition Zone Legal Defense Fund" to raise cash for attorney fees in an effort to develop a defense strategy to counter the Water Board's arguments.

Now, I'm no Johnny Cochran, but it seems like those CDOs could be beaten like an egg, provided there's some keen legal minds stirred into the mix. Stomp those initial 45 CDOs into the ground now, and there may not be a 46th. That seems like it would benefit everyone in Los Osos (well, other than the ones that are calling for "swift and brutal" fines against their neighbors... nice).

Here's the address to send your non-tax-deductible checks:

Payable to: PZLDF

Mail to:
PZLDF
P.O. Box 6095
Los Osos, CA
93412

For more information: 528-6772

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Student Fundraiser for Rescued Los Osos Girl

FROM: Doug Jenison, Principal, Baywood Elementary School

A fundraiser is planned by classmates of the 10-year-old Los Osos girl who survived being swept out to sea on Feb. 12. Fifth-grader Alanna Williams is still recovering at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara.

To help her family defray the medical costs, the Baywood Elementary school band is joining forces with the Baywood Choir to present a benefit in Williams’ honor.

A “Love for Alanna” benefit concert will be held on Tuesday, March 28 at 7 p.m. at the school gym. The suggested donation is $5 at the door.

Donations in any amount may also be made to the Alanna Williams Benefit Account at Mid-State Bank & Trust branches throughout the county.

"Alanna is our friend and a member of the school choir --  and her dad is our mailman," said Clayton Tacker, 11, one of the student organizers. "We know everyone wants to help, and what better way than through music."

For more information, call Baywood Elementary at 534-2856.

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RUSH

"Although history will speak about what happened since those early days, what must not be forgotten is that the September 27, 2005 election was in large part due to a RUSH RUSH RUSH attitude that did not allow for the proper analysis of the problem."
-- Interim LOCSD General Manager, Dan Bleskey, 2/27/06


I'm beginning to like this Bleskey guy. Just a few months on the job, and he's already got it all figured out.

"RUSH, RUSH, RUSH, attitude," indeed.

It was so overlooked, and yet, now that the Los Osos fog is lifting a bit, it's becoming so clear -- the initial CSD Board's futile two year pursuit of the paperweight known as the Community Plan caused the train wreck known as Los Osos. That crucial delay was directly responsible for that "RUSH, RUSH, RUSH attitude," and that attitude, just like Bleskey says, "did not allow for the proper analysis of the problem." And that lack of proper analysis? Well, welcome to Los Osos, '06.

The problem with that "RUSH, RUSH, RUSH attitude," as I see it, is first, the California Coastal Commission created the opportunity for the two year delay, and then the State Water Board allowed it to continue -- for two years! And when the initial CSD finally dumped their first dim plan, as you can imagine, the pressure was on, and the train started a-comin' off the tracks, right then, in the fall of 2000.

In the late summer of 2000, I wrote a freelance, New Times cover story that showed the Community Plan was going down the drain. One month after that story was published, I learned at a CSD meeting, on a crisp, autumn night, that the Community Plan, the Plan that formed the Los Osos Community Services District in the first place, the Plan that got the initial CSD/Solution Group Board elected, was history.

As usual, I immediately relished in my excellent scoop, and I'll never forget the look that then-Director Rose Bowker shot then-Director Pandora Nash-Karner that fateful night when Nash-Karner hinted that the Community Plan could somehow, someway, still work. I swore I saw steam.

As I've mentioned before on this blog, the Tribune did not write one story on the incredibly newsworthy demise of the Community Plan. Not one.

Let's review...

The Solution Group, through an aggressive, "behavior-based marketing strategy," promises Los Osos a sewer project that you would swear could lay golden eggs, even though just about every water quality professional in California was telling the Solution Group their paperweight called the Community Plan wasn't going to work, then that project gets the CSD formed in 1998, then that project was pursued for almost two years, then that project flamed out entirely -- just like all those reality-based, water quality types said it would... two years earlier -- then those two wasted years put a massive amount of pressure on the State agencies that allowed the mess to fester to that point, and then those agencies toss "proper analysis" out the window, and in their haste to get something, anything, in the ground, they carelessly fast-track a disastrous, nonsensical, expensive, mid-town sewer project.

And the Tribune didn't seem to find any of that newsworthy. To quote my niece, "they were all like, yea, whatever."

Instead, the Trib thought it would be better journalism if they just said over and over, for four years, "The never-ending sewer saga, blah, blah, blah. We're tired of it."

Memo to the Tribune: As the only daily paper in the county, you did not have the luxury to get tired of Los Osos.

The Tribune's complete lack of coverage on the demise of the Community Plan from the summer of 2000 to early 2001, is one of the main reasons, if not THE reason, there is a gigantic train wreck in Los Osos today.

If the Tribune had not gone to sleep and followed-up just a little bit on my New Times story, they would have quickly realized that the reality-based project that the current board is attempting to pursue (if the State would just get the hell out of the way), was the project that should have been selected in the first place, and the Tri-W disaster would have never happened.

Any project at Tri-W made no sense after the demise of the Community Plan. The second project was forced there. "RUSH." Sewers are forever. The last seven years in Los Osos were a complete waste. Ugly, but true.

Frankly, if last September's recall had not been successful, and the old board continued to pound away at Tri-W, all of this would have been exposed, eventually (I would have made sure of that), and the situation in Los Osos would have been about a million times worse than it is right now. There would have been a huge sewer plant in the middle of town, forever, and everyone would have known that there was no reason for it to be there, other than two wasted years -- 1999-2000 -- "RUSH."

I can guarantee this: Had the Tri-W project gone through, it would have ended up on NBC Nightly News as a "Fleecing of America" segment, especially if Congresswoman Lois Capps had landed the $35 million of Federal funds she was seeking for the project.

Los Osos dodged a huge bullet last September. You wouldn't know it by walking its neighborhoods, but Los Osos is about the luckiest community I know.

"... history will speak about what happened since those early days?"

History and SewerWatch, Mr. Bleskey. History and SewerWatch.

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