Contrast

If variety is the spice of life, then contrast is the reduction sauce -- it makes almost everything in life better: food (sweet and sour, soft and crunchy), music (quiet then loud, slow then fast), and, of course, sex (see music contrasts).

However, I've noticed some interesting contrasts coming out of Los Osos lately that don't taste so good; some ugly Yin Yang.

On the "Yang" side of the contrast is the unnerving and increasing amount of correspondence coming through my e-mail box regarding the affect the Cease and Desist Orders are having on the lives of not only the 45 CDO recipients, but also other Los Osos residents, as they worry about what is in store for them.

Representing the "Yin" side of the contrast is a coordinated series of e-mails to the executive director of the Regional Water Quality Control Board, Roger Briggs. The e-mails were sent by several people (one, as far away as London!) over a two-day span last September, just two days after the recall election, and appear to be part of a deliberate and desperate "strategy" to retain the Tri-W project.

In an e-mail to Briggs, dated, Wednesday, September 28, 2005, Save the Dream marketing director and strong supporter of the recently recalled CSD Directors, Pandora Nash-Karner, says, "I'd like to talk to you about potential strategy from the property owners to stop a new board from stopping the project. I'll call you Thursday morning."

Apparently the idea behind that "strategy" was/is to actively lobby the RWQCB to fine anything that moves in Los Osos so it will bankrupt and cripple everyone, everywhere -- neighbors, businesses, governmental agencies, anything -- in a desperate attempt get the project back in the hands of the county as fast as possible, in the hope that there's at least a slim chance the county will be as stupid as the 1999-2005 CSD Boards, and the county will complete the work at Tri-W -- there's no chance at all of that happening with the current CSD Board.

("Please... is there any way to salvage the project??????????????????," and, "We MUST save this project!" Both quotes from, Pandora Nash-Karner, just one day after last September's recall election.)

On, Thursday, September 29, 2005, two days after the recall election and one day before the results were even certified, the series of e-mails demanding that the RWQCB fine the LOCSD and Los Osos residents began.

Yep, apparently that's her "strategy." How's that taste, Los Osos?

These days, however, that strategy does make for some very interesting and ugly contrasts in Los Osos.

For example...

The following quote is from someone named, Francisco Focha. He sent it to Briggs two days after the recall election last September, as part of a lobbying campaign to get the RWQCB to start fining the LOCSD and the people of Los Osos.

Yin:

"I think your office should be both swift and brutal with enforcement action against my town."

Now, let me see if I can find something on the Yang side of that, you know, for contrast... anything... let's see here... do-do-do... Ah, yes. Here we go. Perfect:

Yang (from a recent correspondence):

"This prosecution has invaded our lives. We take it to work and home again. We eat our meals with it."

See how that works? The stark contrast? On one side you have, "swift and brutal with enforcement action," and on the other side you have, "This prosecution has invaded our lives."

Wait. There's more.

The following quote is from someone named, Jerry Gregory. He sent it to Briggs two days after the recall election last September, as part of a lobbying campaign to get the RWQCB to start fining the LOCSD and the people of Los Osos.

Yin:

"I asked you to fine the Community of Los Osos if the Recall is successful. Well, I am asking you again. Please do this immediately and with the largest fine that is legal for you to do."

Yang (from a recent correspondence):

"Faced with the CDO's causing condemnation of our home and causing us to have to vacate our home - well, it's more than anyone should have to live with."

Here's another one, if you can stomach it:

The following quote is from someone named, Gail Smith-Deegan. She sent it to Briggs two days after the recall election last September, as part of a lobbying campaign to get the RWQCB to start fining the LOCSD and the people of Los Osos.

Yin:

"I am asking you to... move swiftly to enforce the sanctions against the LOCSD and the individual dischargers as well. I feel it is important to move fast and harsh to stop this as soon as possible. I request no delays and no softening of the blows!"

Yang (from a recent correspondence):

"These have not been easy months for those of us who have received Proposed CDOs. We are exhausted beyond your understanding."

("Exhausted beyond your understanding?" Good news, Mrs. Smith-Deegan, it sounds like no blows were softened.)

Here's some more contrast-y stuff for ya...

The following quote is from someone named, Martha Neder. She sent it to Briggs two days after the recall election last September, as part of a lobbying campaign to get the RWQCB to start fining the LOCSD and the people of Los Osos.

Yin:

"As much as I hate to say it (being a property owner), I think (the enforcement action) should include action against individual property owners."

But Neder wasn't done there. Whoooa, no... not by a long shot. She also thought it'd be a good idea if she got loose with this blast:

"I also think the enforcement action should be swift and strong. Rather than kill us slowly, please make it quick so that people feel the effects and the project moves on to someone who can finish it."

Yang (from a recent correspondence):

"It is like waiting for the executioner's axe to take its toll. We both have been worrying night and day about what is going to happen to us."

The following quote is from someone named, Michael Reddell. He sent it to Briggs two days after the recall election last September, as part of a lobbying campaign to get the RWQCB to start fining the LOCSD and the people of Los Osos.

Yin:

"I think each and every septic system in the community should be condemned outright. That would do the trick over night. Make it personally urgent and they will come around... or leave."

Yang (from a recent correspondence):

"(This prosecution) sends us to the hospital for emergency treatment for high blood pressure, heart conditions, and stress."

(Does a trip to the hospital count as "leaving?")

The following quote is from someone named, Richard S. Sargent. He sent it to Briggs two days after the recall election last September, as part of a lobbying campaign to get the RWQCB to start fining the LOCSD and the people of Los Osos.

Yin:

"Please carry out your warning of fines. Los Osos residents need to face reality. I have, and hope that your fines will result in the dissolution of the CSD and the uninterrupted construction of the current wastewater plant."

Yang (from a recent correspondence):

"(This prosecution) is there when we help our children with their homework and when we play with our pets. It is there when we talk to our grandchildren on the phone. It is there when we spend time with friends, attend church, or work in our gardens."

The following quote is from someone named, James F. Godfrey. He sent it to Briggs two days after the recall election last September, as part of a lobbying campaign to get the RWQCB to start fining the LOCSD and the people of Los Osos.

Yin:

"I am encouraging the Regional Water Quality Control Board to pursue fining the Los Osos CSD and who ever else need be. I personally think the threats of fining our community must come to a halt and action by the RWQCB is the only solution... The harsh action by the RWQCB should wake up Los Osos..."

Yang (from a recent correspondence):

"We sleep with it. We wake up in the night with it."

(Woke 'em right up, Mr. Godfrey.)

Yin:

"I would ask you to stand your ground and begin actively enforcing the penalties..."
-- Mike Hensley

Yin:

"I hope you'll start out by fining the CSD and only move to fine the individual property owners if you encounter further resistance and are still unable to get the project back on track."
-- Lisa K. Miller

Yin:

"The state needs to Step Up or Shut UP! The State, the Water Quality Control Board and the County needs to disband the CSD and take control of this project! The threats of fines to deaf (sic) the dumb and the incompetent new Board members will only delay the project. Please do what is right for the real concerned majority property owners of Los Osos."
-- Leon Van Beurden

And, of course, in true SewerWatch fashion, the best for last:

Yin:

"I hope the CSD gets fined out of existence..."
-- Pandora Nash-Karner, September 28, 2005, one day after a hard-fought and bitter election defeat.

Yang:

"The CSD Board looks forward to having a positive relationship with the County..."
-- Pandora Nash-Karner, December, 1998, as the newly elected, number-one vote getter in the initial CSD Board election.

Yin:

"In order to expedite the situation and lesson the damage, can the enforcement issue be placed on the October RWQCB agenda?"
-- Pandora Nash-Karner, September, 2005

Yang:

"Our Dream was to create a community coalition to seek grants to reduce the wastewater project's cost and to help residents on fixed incomes. Save the Dream cannot move forward with our goals."
-- Pandora Nash-Karner, September, 2005

Yin:

"... could the LOCSD transfer the sewer project to the county BEFORE the current CSD-3 leave office?"
-- Pandora Nash-Karner, September, 2005

Yang:

"The County couldn't care less about the Los Osos Community..."
-- Gary Karner, February, 2005

###

Back in the Crosshairs -- Trib Bashing! Oh Boy!

First, in case you haven't already seen it, stop by Ann Calhoun's great blog and read this amazing and gut wrenching letter from Los Osos resident, Beverley A. De Witt-Moylan. She takes the Tribune out behind the ol' woodshed for a good, old-fashioned beat-down, and just absolutely destroys them.

And, as readers of this blog know, demolishing the Trib's coverage of Los Osos over the last seven years is a favorite past-time here in SewerWatch.

Sadly, and inexplicably, the Trib just doesn't get it, as De Witt-Moylan's letter clearly shows. They have no idea what makes the Los Osos story so very interesting, and, yes, tragic -- the human toll, the colossal mistakes by state agencies, the mind boggling amount of aggregate people hours consumed by the despicable actions of the Solution Group and the early CSD Boards, since 1997. It's easily, easily the best, most important story in the county (if not top-5 in the State!), and the Trib, for whatever reason, just can't grasp it.

Now, it appears, the Trib is at a stage where they can't report on how Los Osos got to where it is today, because, if they did, everyone -- throughout the county, throughout the State, and all the way to the halls of Congress -- would be screaming in unison, "Where in the hell were you on all of this?!"

Think about this for a second -- the "better, cheaper, faster" sewer project that got Los Osos voters to bite on establishing a CSD in the first place, in 1998, failed miserably in August, 2000, and the Trib didn't write a single story on it. That just blows my mind, but what makes it splatter all over the place is that, as I've mentioned many times, I wrote a New Times cover story in July, 2000, that showed the "better, cheaper, faster" plan that got the the LOCSD established in the first place, and three Solution Group members elected -- including number one vote-getter and Solution Group marketing director, Pandora Nash-Karner -- was on the verge of failing, dramatically.

I couldn't have made the red flags any redder in that story. For God's sake, the cover image for that issue -- created by the long-time, and talented lead graphic designer at New Times, Alex Zuniga -- showed the words "better, cheaper, faster" going down a toilet! Brilliant, clever and perfect.

The caption on the cover read: "Delays and Increased Costs Plaque Los Osos' Sewer Plan"

About a month after that story was published, I learned at a CSD meeting (you had to strain to hear it, and if you blinked you missed it), that the plan that got them elected and the CSD formed, was officially gone-zo.

You should have seen my end zone celebration when I heard that. What an awesome scoop. I was fake-River Dancing in the aisles, pulling a Sharpee out of my sock, then signing my notebook and handing it to someone in the crowd. I was pumped, because I knew I had scooped the Trib, badly, on a great and important and extremely newsworthy story, and now they were going to have to follow-up on my scoop, and the inevitable, massive scandal that was sure to ensue was going to rock Los Osos to the core.

The Trib did not write one word of follow-up, ever, to this day. Zero.

Unfortunately for Los Osos, that did two huge things. 1) It didn't expose the Solution Group's plan as the pure campaign material that it was (and if it had, they would have been run out of office in 2000, the Tri-W fiasco would have never happened, Los Osos would've had an out-of-town sewer plant years ago, and this blog would not exist today), and 2) It gave the impression that everything was fine at the Los Osos Community Services District, so the community -- along with the Trib -- just kind of went to sleep. Why not? "Hey, 'better, cheaper, faster,' baby. Right on. Make it happen." However, in reality, the CSD was in complete disarray in August, 2000, as they scrambled to figure out how they could quickly and quietly produce a viable second sewer project, at the same location, after wasting almost two years chasing their unviable-from-the-start first project.

In my last post, I said that I had a phrase to describe the Trib's coverage of Los Osos over the last seven years: "Worse than nothing." And I mean that... it would have been far better for Los Osos if the Trib had not written a single word on this subject from 2000 - 2005. Their uninformed reporting was terrible.

Real quick... I want to confess something. To tell you the truth -- I really don't have much of a problem with the Solution Group using their "better, cheaper, faster" project solely as campaign material to get themselves elected and the CSD formed in 1998. (C'mon, let's face it, the road to successful elections in America is littered with less than scrupulous marketing tactics, just ask John McCain. So, I'll give them a tiny bit of room on that one... throw together some nice graphics, toss in some attractive, made-up numbers, package it all professionally, mix in a lot of "behavior-based marketing," and, presto, you have some very effective campaign material, obviously. If the goal was to wrangle local control away from the county, no matter how unscrupulously, then, fine, mission accomplished.) But, for the love of god, as the newly elected CSD, feign a chase of your non-plan for two or three months, and then simply say something like, "Hey, we've come across some new data that shows our plan isn't going to work in Los Osos. What should we do now?"

What f-d everything up, is that they chased it for almost two years, and the local Water Quality Board staff, led by Roger Briggs at the time, allowed them to chase it, even though Briggs and Co. were fully aware, from day one (January 1, 1999), that that so-called "project" wasn't going to work in Los Osos. Amazing. That blows me away.

I don't know about you, but when I'm in a nice restaurant, and there's a screaming four-year-old sitting behind me, I don't get mad at the kid, I get mad at the parents for allowing the kid to scream. (Dude, take the kid outside until he calms down, please!) However, the problem today, as I see it, is that the parents that allowed the kid to scream in the restaurant for two years, are now telling 45 fellow diners, all of whom have a massive headache because of that screaming, to pick up their dinner tab.

The RWQCB never paid a penny of consequences for that disastrous two year delay, that they allowed. Nope, instead Briggs and Co. gave that check to 45 devastated Los Ososans. That is utterly wrong, and very newsworthy, which means, of course, the Trib will not cover any of it, for whatever reason. I don't know.

###