She is Los Osos, Part I

For me, the sewer story is the second best story out of Los Osos, and it's a distant second.

Without question, the much richer, more fascinating, and blow-your-hair-back interesting story is the impact one person, Pandora Nash-Karner, and her marketing business has had on not only Los Osos, but even more astounding, on one powerful government agency after another -- from the California Coastal Commission to the Regional Water Quality Control Board -- agencies that should know better, yet, ultimately, were just more victims, in a long line of victims, of Nash-Karner's brand of marketing -- a brand she terms "behavior based."

I don't know how to put this nicely, so I'm just going to put it: There is no doubt about it, the marketing efforts in Los Osos of former Community Services District vice-president, Pandora Nash-Karner, since at least 1997, are directly responsible for every nickel poured down the Los Osos sewer drain over the last ten years, at least. The evidence is overwhelming, and ugly.

Awhile back, I wrote a piece on this blog called Contrast. In that piece, I showed how Nash-Karner developed a strategy to get people from her e-mail list to contact Roger Briggs, the executive officer at the local Water Quality Control Board, and demand that Briggs immediately begin fining the Los Community Services District, and individual property owners in Los Osos, many of whom are elderly and on fixed incomes.

The goal of that particular strategy was to "fine the LOCSD out of existence," according to Nash-Karner, in an effort to get the fate of the mid-town Tri-W project, a project that she deeply covets (for heretofore unknown reasons), out of the hands of the newly elected District Directors, that were never going to build it, and into the hands of administrators with the county of San Luis Obispo. That goal was ultimately accomplished not through enforcement actions, but through State legislation.

For this piece, I want to pull back the curtain on yet another Nash-Karner "strategy," a behind-the-scenes look at how she goes about her business.

This Nash-Karner strategy is from August, 2005, one month before the recall election that would see Nash-Karner's fellow Solution Group members, Gordon Hensley and Stan Gustafson, along with like-minded Director, Richard LeGros recalled. This time around, her strategy's goal was to publicly discredit then-minority board members, Lisa Schicker and Julie Tacker, both fierce opponents, understandably, of Nash-Karner's mid-town sewer plant located at the Tri-W location. Her reasoning went along these lines: Discredit Tacker and Schicker, and because they support the recall, then the recall itself is undermined.

Warning: The way she goes about her business is ugly. If you are susceptible to queasiness, take your nausea "medicine" now.

Let's pull back the curtain and take a peek, shall we?

In an e-mail to her "Undisclosed List", forwarded to me by a reliable source, Nash-Karner writes:

"Hello all,

It's time to launch a serious letter writing campaign to the local media."

I want to stop right there. It's time? So blasé, like she's done it a million times, "Yea, well, here we go again, time for me to orchestrate yet another one of my serious letter writing campaigns to the local media, blah, blah, blah..."

What kind of person does that? I've met a lot of people in my life, but I only know one person that coordinates "serious letter writing campaigns" time and time and time again. The weird thing is, she usually self-appoints herself to that role.

She continues:

"Attached is a lengthy list of ideas for letters to the editor." and; "Just use the ideas as CONCEPTS to write your own original letter."

Stop.

How is that not incredibly insulting to the people she's sending it to? A freaking "lengthy list of ideas?" "Use the ideas as CONCEPTS?" Are you kidding me? In essence, she's telling these people that they're too stupid to come up with their own solid arguments? She treats them like they're 12-years-old.

"Joyce Albright found out today that the Tribune will be allowing a section, once per week, on the sewer issue. Please do NOT copy the concepts in your letter, otherwise, the media will recognize our efforts as a group effort and we lose our credibility."

You know, some people read my posts, like this one, that deal with Nash-Karner, and think I dislike her. That is a misconception. I love Nash-Karner. She makes for one of the best stories I've ever seen, let alone covered... extensively. She's awesome, from a journalism point of view.

"... the media will recognize our efforts as a group effort and we lose our credibility."

- - -
Memo to Pandora Nash-Karner: I can't speak for all of the other media members in the county that you've coddled for decades, but, just so you're clear on this -- SewerWatch recognized your efforts long ago, and, long ago, you lost your credibility around here.
- - -

On her marketing business web site, she refers to the media as "tools."

Awhile back, I e-mailed local radio talk show host, Dave Congalton, to get his reaction to Nash-Karner referring to him as a "tool." He would just say that she is a "wonderful person." During the run-up to the crucial election in 1998 that formed the LOCSD, Nash-Karner appeared on Congalton's show frequently to promote the Solution Group's flawed ponding system project, a project that would eventually fail in dramatic, yet quiet, fashion two years later. Congalton nicknamed that project "Pandoraland," and to this day, the two remain on a first-name basis.

Also on her web site, she lists another local talk radio show host, Bill Benica, as a "consultant" for her marketing business. Benica has been taking phone calls and discussing the Los Osos sewer situation on his radio show for years, at the same time working closely with, and pulling a check from, Nash-Karner.

She is also on a first-name basis with the Opinion page editor at the Tribune, Bill Morem, and has been since at least 1990, documents show. During the run-up to the recall election in 2005, the Tribune ran three separate editorials, including one on election day, that backed Nash-Karner's efforts.

On her web site, she refers to the media as "tools." (Oh, I'm sorry. Did I already mention that?)

When I was the editor of The Bay Breeze (now The Bay News) from 1996-99, I witnessed, first-hand, all up-close and personal like, her attempts to manipulate the media. She used to contact our office all the time, and send me an endless stream of marketing material and press releases, by far more than any other individual, or organization... BY FAR!

In 1997, when I, unlike Nash-Karner's friends at the Sun Bulletin, waited to publicize the Solution Group's Community Plan, the first project slated for Tri-W, until a study determining the merits of that project was completed, she flipped. Lots of angry phone calls and threatening letters, the "you're going to lose advertising and go out of business" type of letters. Nasty, ugly stuff. Bad noise. By the way, good thing I waited. That study -- the Questa Study -- showed that her Community Plan was deeply, deeply flawed. Now THAT I published... on the front page... above the fold... in the biggest font size that I ever used for a headline the entire three years I was editing the Breeze.

The Questa Study would eventually prove to be 100-percent accurate. After the results of the Questa Study were published, first by The Bay Breeze (a scoop that I am still proud of today), Nash-Karner launched in to yet another, community-wide-saturation, behavior based marketing strategy in an effort to discredit Questa Engineering, the authors of the study. However, in the end, Questa Engineering was uncannily accurate, and if Nash-Karner's Solution Group had simply heeded the gigantic red flags raised in that 1998 study, the Los Osos Community Services District would have never formed and the county's project would have been completed years ago.

I mean it. Pandora Nash-Karner makes for one of the best stories I've ever seen. The profound impact one person's marketing can have on a community is a much richer story than a public works disaster, which is nothing more than a by-product of the awesome Nash-Karner story, anyway.

She took me out to lunch one time in the early 90s. I was fresh out of journalism school and working as a reporter for The Bay News (The Bay News morphed into The Bay Breeze and then it morphed back into The Bay News... long story). In fact, she treated the entire staff of The Bay News, all five of us, including a current editor at the Tribune, Jay Thompson (great guy, great journalist), to lunch that day at Don Eduardo's (that restaurant is called something else these days, but I forgot what it is), at the end of Second Street, near the pier.

I'll never forget sitting there, eating my tacos, and thinking to myself, "Why is this person schmoozing us? No other individual schmoozes us. Is she expecting some sort of repayment for this lunch?" I was uncomfortable with that strange setting -- the five of us, and Nash-Karner. That was the first time I viewed Nash-Karner with a hint of suspicion. After that lunch, she would contact us repeatedly, for years, but she never took us out to lunch again.

Back to Nash-Karner's 2005 strategy:

"We need to repetitiously communicate a simple message: A VOTE FOR THE FUTURE OF LOS OSOS IS A NO VOTE ON C, D & E, AND A NO VOTE ON MEASURE B. (Please do not use the word initiative)."

One of my favorite aspects of Nash-Karner is that she thinks she is much better at manipulating people than she actually is, as the last three elections in Los Osos show. (Los Ososans might also remember a silly publicity stunt she pulled a couple of years back (see photo above) where she rented of a bunch of port-a-potties, blanketed them with a lot of confusing campaign slogans, and then drug them around town for a few days. Yeah... that seemed to work out good for her. Not too embarrassing.) For example, in that quote above, she's attempting to "communicate a simple message" to the people of Los Osos because, apparently, she considers them too stupid to grasp a message filled with honest, meaningful content, and her "simple" message is this:

"A VOTE FOR THE FUTURE OF LOS OSOS IS A NO VOTE ON C, D & E, AND A NO VOTE ON MEASURE B."

Huh?

Let me see if I have her "simple" message straight: A VOTE for the future of Los Osos (I'm already confused) is if I VOTE on... no, no, no... don't VOTE ON B so the future... ummmm... errrrrrr... Los Osos is a NO vote ON A & E, D, C, and sometimes B, I think, which is an Initiative... or is it a Measure? And if B is a Measure, then what are C, E... oh wait, I see now... E, A, D, C & B are Measure Initiatives from the future that are a VOTE for a NO VOTE... ahhhh, screw it.

Why wasn't her simple message something like this:

"Reject the recall"

(Hey, that's pretty damn good. Maybe "Save the Dream," the shady, private group that Nash-Karner formed and marketed for during the recall campaign, should have thrown all their money at me, instead.)

Her skills (and I'm not comfortable using that word to describe the way she goes about her marketing business) seem to have slipped over the years. For example, in 1998, when she was in her prime, during the run-up to the CSD election, the simple message she chose to "repetitiously communicate" in Los Osos was, "Better, Cheaper, Faster."

Now THAT'S simple.

And when it comes to repetition, there's no contest. Check it out:

"Better, Cheaper, Faster."
"Better, Cheaper, Faster."
"Better, Cheaper, Faster."

Yeah, that works. Clean, easy to remember, effective. Good job.

But, now, 10 years after "Better, Cheaper, Faster," this is the best she can come up with:

"A VOTE FOR THE FUTURE OF LOS OSOS IS A NO VOTE ON C, D & E, AND A NO VOTE ON MEASURE B.
"A VOTE FOR THE FUTURE OF LOS OSOS IS A NO VOTE ON C, D & E, AND A NO VOTE ON MEASURE B.
"A VOTE FOR THE FUTURE OF LOS OSOS IS A NO VOTE ON C, D & E, AND A NO VOTE ON MEASURE B.

See? The repetition just doesn't quite have the same snap, the same impact that it used to.

"Please do not use the word initiative."

Right, good advice. That's always an integral part of any good smear campaign. I bet I know why the recall was successful. Because one of Nash-Karner's letter writers inadvertently used the word "initiative" when they should have used "Measure." Oh, so close.

Again, if I was on her e-mail list and she sent me that stuff, I'd be pissed. "How stupid do you think I am? Who are you to tell me which words to use?"... would be my reply. But her recipients don't do that. They actually listen to her. Big mistake.

"SCHICKER AND TACKER: Please do not refer to them as "women," let's not make a gender issue out of the campaign. You can refer to them as: CSD dissidents, CSD minority members, anti-project CSD members, CSD opposition leaders, etc."

I don't even know what to say to that. It's so creepy. Every time I see a real-life example of Nash-Karner's behind-the-scenes string-pulling, her behavior based marketing in action, I feel like I need a shower. It's so unscrupulous, cruel, and downright gross.

"You can refer to them as..."

I'm sure your followers thank you, Pandora, for allowing them to refer to Julie Tacker and Lisa Schicker as "CSD opposition leaders," whatever that means.

Have you, dear reader, ever ONCE told a group of adults which words they can and can not use? Me neither. I'm much too nice of a person to be that insulting and condescending. To me, statements like, "You can refer to them as...," are an interesting glimpse into her mind set, and that set is this: "I'll tell YOU what's best."

My favorite Nash-Karner approved title for Schicker and Tacker is, "anti-project CSD members." That's typical Nash-Karner.

You see, Schicker and Tacker, as Nash-Karner is well aware, have always favored a wastewater project in Los Osos, just not Nash-Karner's nonsensical Tri-W project, but she deliberately attempts to paint both of them as anti-any-project. Completely false. But that's not surprising. The truth is discarded as easily as a cigarette butt in the world of Nash-Karner's behavior based marketing strategies. On her web site she refers to that kind of deliberate confusion as "compelling language." I have another two word phrase I use to describe her "compelling language": compulsive lying.

"Going before the Coastal Commission in April to revoke a permit was negative because it would have devalued the permit, a permit that cost about $20 million to get."

I can't think of one single person from Los Osos -- woah-wo-wo, check that -- I can't think of one single person anywhere that has appeared before the Coastal Commission more than Nash-Karner, including throughout 1998, when she Jedi mind tricked the California Coastal Commission into letting her also Jedi mind trick the community of Los Osos into forming the Los Osos Community Services District.

And that "$20 million to get" crack? She seems to be real familiar with that figure.

Yes, that permit did cost $20 million to get, at least. And what I find interesting these days, is that I frequently hear that number come up as an argument for the Tri-W project, including, and this is great, at a recent county supervisors meeting when Paavo Ogren of the public works department was fumbling around for an answer to, "Why is the Tri-W project still on the table," when he finally just blurted out, "A lot of money has been spent on it."

Yep. Sure has. So why is that an argument to keep the unpopular, fatally flawed, never-going-to-work project around today? Look, just because Nash-Karner is good at wasting money, doesn't mean her project is any more valid today than it was the nano-second after her Community Plan failed (more on that later).

The rest of Nash-Karner's "lengthy list of ideas for letters to the editor" from her 2005 smear campaign is nothing more than conjecture, most of which would prove to be flat-out wrong. But one of her "ideas," in particular, just kills me:

"They (Tacker and Schicker) have expended an enormous amount of time and energy in negative acts."

What a nauseating hypocrite. By the time Schicker and Tacker were elected in late 2004, the path of destruction from Hurricane Pandora over the previous seven years in Los Osos was wide, total, and very, very expensive.

I often wonder how much money Nash-Karner's meddling has cost taxpayers over the years. From the mind-boggling amount of staff time she's consumed, to the wasted $20 - $30 million spent on her two Tri-W projects, to the wasted $6 million dollars that she cost county taxpayers in 1999 when she dumped the county's project in favor of her Community Plan that never worked, to the millions spent on all the sewer related elections she's caused, to the cost of the equipment required at all those meetings, and the cost of the maintenance people it takes to set up all that equipment, and the energy to power all that equipment at all of those meetings, and all the gas and car trips it takes for all the people to get to all of those meetings that are needed solely because of her incessant marketing strategies in Los Osos dating back to 1997, at least.

And the aggregate amount of people hours she's consumed during that time? That one just leaves me shaking my head.

So, what kind of combined costs are we talking about here, since Nash-Karner began her sewer meddling? If a credible source were to tell me that figure is somewhere around $100 million, I wouldn't even blink.

$100 million bucks, straight down the behavior based marketing drain, and she has the nerve to conduct a smear campaign on Schicker and Tacker because they, according to Nash-Karner, "have expended an enormous amount of time and energy in negative acts."

I told you you were going to need some nausea "medicine."

"Questions? Please call me."

One ringy-dingy, two ringy-dingies... Hello, Pandora? I've been examining some of your self-called "strategies" over the years, and here are my questions:

Would you and your "behavior based marketing" strategies just go away? Please?

(SewerWatch note: Part two of "She is Los Osos" is continued on the post directly beneath this one, linked here. The single post was too long to put in one post.)

She is Los Osos, Part II

(SewerWatch note: This is the second part of the post immediately above this one, linked here. The entire story was too large to fit in one posting.)

So, to summarize (and, this, unfortunately for all taxpayers, is a loooooong summary), for those keeping score, the following is a list of Nash-Karner's strategies for Los Osos over the years (for the sewer only, mind you! She also has a bunch of little strategies for other stuff, including pushing her precious pool project through the system, even though LO voters shot down Measure D in 1997 that would have assessed property owners in the community $40 a year to pay for that project. Yep, that multi-million dollar pool project is currently making its way through the system, despite the failure of Measure D -- a Measure that Nash-Karner spearheaded. Oh, and one more thing, she is also a current member of the SLO County Parks Commission, a seat she has held since 1991, and it's the SLO County Parks Commission that is carrying the Los Osos pool project through. I call that project "sewer junior." The parallels are almost identical.):

A strategy in 1997, to get the the local media to embrace her deeply flawed Community Plan, developed by the Solution Group, a citizens group she founded, and, as marketing director, sent out an elaborate press kit to the local media that trumpeted her deeply flawed project. That strategy worked on all media but The Bay Breeze.

A strategy in 1998 to discredit Questa Engineering and the Questa Study that was highly critical of the Community Plan. Her strategy worked, even though the Questa Study would prove to be 100-percent accurate.

A strategy in 1998 to convince the Coastal Commission to allow her to chase her Community Plan, even though the Commission had a ton of evidence in front of it, like the Questa Study, that showed her project was never going to work, and the Commission's own brilliant staff was telling them not to listen to her. The 1998 Coastal Commission ignored their brilliant staff and listened to Nash-Karner, and her strategy worked.

A strategy in 1998 to absolutely saturate the community with Solution Group marketing material, most of it with made-up numbers, to get the voters of Los Osos to form the LOCSD on the back of "Better, Cheaper, Faster" so she could chase her dead-on-arrival Community Plan. That strategy worked.

A strategy from 1999 - 2000 to convince the RWQCB to withhold enforcement actions against the LOCSD while she futilely chased her Community Plan for two years, even though that Board and its staff were sitting on a mountain of credible evidence that showed that project was never going to work. Her strategy worked. (Yep, Briggs was Jedi mind tricked, like many other government officials, by Nash-Karner.)

A strategy to get the State Water Board to agree to extend a crucial loan for her Community Plan, even though there was a ton of excellent evidence that showed that project was never going to work. Her strategy worked. (A great example of that particular strategy can be found at this link, where Coast & Ocean writes: "The State Water Board was reluctant to reassign the $47 million loan commitment it had made to the County to this little novice CSD. Other projects that seemed more likely to succeed could use the money. So "we went to Sacramento and told them we can do the job. I'm surprised they didn't laugh at us. We didn't even have business cards yet." With 15 minutes to present its case, the CSD decided "to show them our project was not about pipes and pumps, it was about keeping people in their homes," (Nash-Karner) said.

All that crap about "doing the job" (which she didn't) and "keeping people in their homes" was pure behavior based marketing in action, and she did it to a State agency, again, and they bought it, again, when they should have known better... Jedi mind tricked.

And because the Water Board bought that crap in 1999, that led to massive delays, because it unnecessarily kept the Community Plan around for almost two years. If all those State agencies, and that includes the RWQCB, had not bought in to Nash-Karner's marketing strategies in 1998 - 2000, her Community Plan would have either never happened, or it would have fallen off the table almost immediately, and the county's ready-to-go plan would have been the obvious replacement.)

A strategy in 2001, as CSD vice-president, to convince the Coastal Commission that there was a "strongly held community value" in Los Osos that any sewer plant in the town must also double as a "centrally located recreational asset," even though there isn't a shred of evidence that shows that, thereby locking in Tri-W for her second project, because her first project, the one that got her elected and the CSD formed in the first place, failed miserably, just like the Questa Study, and others, predicted, but, if she could just quietly weasel her second project in at Tri-W too, via a non-existent "community value," no one would notice, at least no one from her coddled press. That strategy worked, (until I re-entered the picture with my second New Times cover story, Three Blocks Upwind of Downtown, in 2004. [Wow, now that I look at it, that was a long time between the two, wasn't it? Sorry 'bout that, Los Osos, but in my defense, it did take awhile for "bait and switchy" to play out. And would it have killed the Tribune to write ONE story on any of this stuff? For God's sake, I realize Nash-Karner's "tool," Bill Morem, is only the Opinion page editor, but does he call ALL of the editorial shots at the Trib? If so, it sure would explain the complete absence of any story critical of Nash-Karner in that paper, ever!]

[Note: I always have to interject something at this juncture: Considering she spearheaded two ballot Measures in 1997 that both dealt with public recreation in Los Osos, and they both failed, yet just three years later, as an elected official and a County Parks Commissioner, she's telling the Coastal Commission, in an apparent attempt to cover-up the failure of her first plan, that there's a "strongly held community value" in Los Osos that any sewer plant must also double as a "centrally located recreational asset" even though there isn't a shred of evidence that supports that extraordinary claim, and the only "centrally located" sewer-park site is Tri-W, and considering that scenario fits every definition of fraud in California that I can find, I don't see how that is not a slam-dunk case of fraud... massive, very expensive fraud.]

A strategy in 2000 to flood New Times with letters and an op-ed piece the week after my first New Times cover story, Problems with the Solution was published in July of that year. In that story, I showed how her Community Plan was going down the drain. In the very next issue of New Times, there was a "serious letter writing campaign" and an editorial from Nash-Karner herself, as CSD vice-president, attempting to discredit me and my story. Shortly after that issue, I learned that her Community Plan was officially, and quietly, down the drain... just like I predicted in my story. Her strategy did not work there, unless, and this is extremely interesting, her strategy's only goal was to obfuscate the Community Plan's failure, and make it as quiet as possible. If that was her goal, then her strategy worked perfectly.

Which is why it is so critical that a firm date be established for the demise of the Community Plan. Shockingly, as it exists today, today, there is not one person that I know of that can name that date. And I'm very interested in that date, because if that date is before July, 6, 2000, and I know it's REALLY close to it, then that means Nash-Karner was lying in Problems with the Solution when she said: "We're confident that this is the most appropriate and most environmentally friendly plan. And we will be able to build it faster (than the county could have)."

She told a reporter that the Community Plan was still on the table when, almost certainly, it wasn't, and at best it was just a few weeks away from complete failure. Just a flat-out, bold face lie, to a journalist. And that means the only reason she would have told that lie was to muffle the sound, and muddy the waters of the Community Plan's collapse, that had likely ALREADY HAPPENED when she did that interview. And that means there's only one reason she would have muffled that hideous sound, so she could, as quietly as behavior-basedly possible, buy some time to sneak project #2 in to the Tri-W site for no legitimate reason whatsoever, and then hope to hell no one noticed the difference, at least no one from her media "tool" box.

So, considering Problems with the Solution was published on July 6, 2000, what date did the Community Plan fail!?

[SewerWatch note: I need to do a "full disclosure" thing here, and it's an interesting one. Although I wrote 95-percent of Problems with the Solution and the by-line for that story is mine, I did not conduct the interview with Nash-Karner found in that story. The editors at New Times added it after I submitted my original copy. I deliberately did not interview Nash-Karner for that story because, at the time, I was really starting to see the impacts she was having on Los Osos with her marketing, and I was also noticing -- how do I put this? -- the less-than-truthful ways she goes about her marketing business, and that combination -- someone that practices less-than-truthful saturation marketing, is over-the-top when it comes to all things "parks" (even if it means cramming them in to a sewer plant to get one built, and then have that park dictate an expensive, mid-town location), not ashamed at all to employ "behavior based marketing" tactics and "compelling language" all over the place... on her neighbors, on government agencies... it doesn't matter, uses the media as "tools," and is pristine Teflon when it comes to any sort of accountability (just wipes it off. In her mind, nothing sticks to her.) -- that combination has no business being around a reporter, or an elected seat, or an appointed seat, ever.

However, in fairness, I did interview her husband, and fellow Solution Group founder, Gary Karner, for that story, along with then-District general manager, Bruce Buel, and everyone else, but there was no way I was going to hand Nash-Karner a megaphone. Not then. Not there.

But the NT editors did, without my knowledge. I first became aware of that interview when I read my story after it was printed in New Times. At the time, I was kind of mad, but these days I'm glad they interviewed her, because now we have this great, time-stamped quote: "We’re confident that this is the most appropriate and most environmentally friendly plan. And we will be able to build it faster (than the county could have)."

At the time she gave that interview for a story that focused solely on the Oswald ponding system technology found in her Community Plan, the "appropriate" plan she was so "confident" in, the plan that got her elected and the LOCSD formed in the first place, was either already in the garbage bin, or damn close to it.

Let me put it this way, I'll do the math: Problems with the Solution, chronicling the imminent demise of the first project at Tri-W, Nash-Karner's Community Plan, was published in July, 2000. The draft version of the Environmental Impact Report for the second Tri-W project was published in November, 2000. That leaves less than five months to fire your existing engineering firm, the one whose plan got you elected in the first place (Oswald Engineering -- and then sue them, which they did), hire another engineering firm (Montgomery, Watson), have them completely redesign everything -- collection system, treatment facility (from Oswald's 50 - 70 acre ponding system, to MW's 5 - 7 acre conventional sewer plant), and then knock out a complex draft EIR. All of that in less than five months? I DON'T THINK SO. Which means that at the time I was researching Problems with the Solution, the Community Plan, the project that was the sole focus of that entire story, had likely been off the table for months, and Nash-Karner was lying through her teeth, as vice-president of the Los Osos Community Services District, when she told editors at New Times, "We're confident that this is the most appropriate and most environmentally friendly plan. And we will be able to build it faster (than the county could have)."

Absolutely disgusting.

So, why did she lie? Don't need to be Jim Rockford to figure that one out.

1) To cover her ass from the highly embarrassing, and possibly highly litigatable, failure of her Community Plan, and a boat-load of other behavior based, documentable lies stemming from her 1997 - 98 LOCSD/Solution Group campaign.

and;

2) To buy her some time to figure out a way to jam another sewer plant in to her Tri-W site, which she ultimately did with her "strongly held community value" fraud-lie to the California Coastal Commission in 2001, and then obfuscate like hell so no one notices.

No wonder she's trying so hard to get a project, ANY project, built at Tri-W. Her relentless, over-the-top zeal to put a sewer plant at the unpopular, expensive, fatally flawed, mid-town Tri-W site is finally beginning to make a heck of a lot of sense to me, along with quotes like these to Roger Briggs one day after the 2005 recall election:

"Please... is there any way to salvage the project?"

and;

"We MUST save this project!"

And let the record reflect, that is exactly why I chose not to interview her for that story. I was worried she was going to lie to me, and I hate it when a source lies to me. However, look what happened, she lied to the New Times editors, and those lies ended up in my story anyway. Those editors f-d up and trusted Nash-Karner. I know better. But what pisses me off is that their f-up allowed behavior based marketing to leak in to my otherwise super-tight story, especially since I took such care to keep it out!]

A strategy in 2001 where Nash-Karner, as a CSD vice-president, used public funds to commission a "public opinion study" shortly before a crucial assessment vote. That study had pollsters phone hundreds of Los Osos property owners, in a vote that included only property owners, and tell them wildly inaccurate, yet favorable, information about Nash-Karner's second Tri-W project. A public opinion expert would later tell me she was astonished by some of the highly questionable wording in that study. State law prohibits the use of public funds for campaign material. That strategy worked, and, along with a hefty dose of fear, another key component in any good behavior based marketing strategy (You're going to lose your home unless you vote for this!), the 218 vote was successful, and that kept Nash-Karner's second Tri-W project chugging on down the poorly-laid track. The train wreck was just a matter of time at that point.

A strategy in 2002 to keep her fingers on the strings of Los Osos voters, using their money, by placing a $700,000 bid for public relations services to the LOCSD shortly after leaving office, serving just one term as a CSD Director, during which time she burned through three sewer projects (the county's viable project, her non-viable Community Plan, and her second Tri-W project, that was also never going to work, by the way.) Although her bid was accepted by the District, she did not get the contract.

However, her strategy may still have worked there, because, apparently, that's not where the expensive public relations contract story ends.

I recently did a little research on that contract because it deals specifically with the subject at hand -- Pandora Nash-Karner, and the marketing of the Los Osos sewer project -- and, well wha-da-ya know? Something stinks about that contract.

That fat contract was eventually awarded to someone named Maria Singleton, to the tune of almost $520,000.

According to a Tribune report at the time, "the contract also calls for her writers and other assistants to be paid at separate rates ranging from $30 an hour to $80 an hour."

Here's the problem I'm having, I can't seem to track down Maria Singleton to ask her if Pandora Nash-Karner was ever one of those "writers" and/or "other assistants."

Call it a journalistic hunch, but I've got $100 bucks that says she was.

I looked Singleton up in the phone book, and although there's a Maria Singleton listed, when I called the number, I got a message machine, and the name left on that machine is not Maria Singleton's. Furthermore, according to the Trib, her company's name is Singleton & Associates, out of San Luis Obispo. Not only is there no listing for that company in the phone book's Yellow Pages (that I could find) or business section, but even a Google search for -- "Singleton & Associates" obispo -- doesn't return any information on her company at all, other than the same link I supply above -- that great case-environmental.org link.

Poof. Gone. Three short years ago she was pulling in over a half of a million dollars from the Los Osos Community Services District for popping out a few "spiffy quarterly publications," and all of a sudden both Singleton and her company seem to be awfully hard to find.

From a December, 2003, Tribune opinion piece:

"What kind of bang for its buck has the community been getting from the district's public relations firm? Spiffy quarterly publications called Bear Pride on heavy stock paper filled with graphics and color. Unfortunately, all the whistles and bells haven't served their desired purpose: A growing segment of the community seems to have ever more questions about the changing nature of the sewer. The question arises: Have relations between the district and public been served? Apparently not."

Apparently not! Because those "ever more questions" about the "changing nature of the sewer" were never, and I mean EVER, answered with that half million bucks.

Instead, Los Osos got this...

From a December, 2003, Tribune report regarding the Singleton contract:

"An effort to clear up confusion and misinformation surrounding the Los Osos sewer project may have backfired. Some Los Osos residents and business people are upset by a contract approved in November by the district Board of Directors to pay $318,595 for seven months of public relations work." (Note: The contract was an extension of a 13-month, $200,000 contract that was previously secured by Singleton.)

Tribune reporter, David Sneed, got that wrong.

That was never, "An effort to clear up confusion and misinformation surrounding the Los Osos sewer..."

Oh, no, no, no.

Let's be crystal clear on what that "effort" was: That was an effort to create "confusion and misinformation surrounding the Los Osos sewer," and it was paid for by the same people it was targeted at. (Give me a sec... I'll be right back... I need go to take some nausea "medicine.")

THAT's why none of those "ever more questions" were answered. They were never intended to be answered, just obfuscated.

The Tribune finishes off their opinion piece with this great blast:

"Perhaps the first whittling from the Singleton contract could be the $6,000 budgeted for "media relations." Why? When Singleton was contacted about her contract by The Tribune, she said she couldn't comment and referred questions about it to district officials.

Now that's bang for your buck."

That is quality smack. (Why don't they write more editorials like that?)

Sooooooo.......... ummmmmm.......... that seemed like $518,000 well spent, huh? It ensured that voters in Los Osos would stay completely confused on why they originally voted for a $38.75/month ponding system in 1998, but were now getting a $much-much-much-more-than-that/month industrial sewer plant in the middle of their town. Plus, there was the added bonus of the Tribune getting stonewalled by Singleton (and, by the way, major props to the Trib, at least they were able to track her down... that's more than I can say) even though she pocketed $6,000 to talk to them, and these days, just three years later, Singleton & Associates seems to be nowhere in sight... gonzo, with over a half million dollars of Los Osos taxpayer money for less than two years worth of "work" -- "work" that would prove to be nothing more than a publicly financed, behavior based marketing mindfuck, just like Nash-Karner's public opinion study two years earlier.

A strategy in 2005 to stave off a looming recall effort following the election of rivals Lisa Schicker and Julie Tacker to the LOCSD Board, when Nash-Karner formed yet another one of her citizens groups, "Save the Dream." As marketing director, she would, among other questionable marketing efforts (remember the port-a-pottie story?), publish a series of glossy newsletters and, of course, immediately saturate Los Osos with them. I e-mailed one of those newsletters to a State official. He said he was "galled" by the blatant falsehoods contained in it. Despite those falsehoods, her strategy did not work there.

A strategy in 2005 to defeat the recall by using the Los Osos Community Services District's recently hired Public Information Officer to do her behavior based marketing dirty work. (I say that because, shortly after the District hired Mike Drake as their PIO, I called him to get some questions answered that I wasn't getting answers to before they hired him (at around $100,000/year, a damn steal when compared to Singleton), and after fumbling around with some non-answers, Drake finally told me to e-mail my questions to him, which I reluctantly did. (I prefer phone interviews, especially when it comes to media matters and the Los Osos CSD) When I got that e-mail back later that day, Nash-Karner's easy-to-spot behavior based fingerprints were all over it, and the terrible responses to my questions had nothing to do with what Drake was telling me over the phone, just a few hours earlier. Yet, when I phoned him back to ask him, straight-up, "Are these answers your answers," he said, "Yes." I even gave him a second chance, and repeated, "These are your original answers," and, again, he said, "Yes." [Mike, nothing against you, buddy. You were simply hung out to dry, just another in a long line of people that f-d up and trusted Nash-Karner.]) Her strategy did not work there.

Another strategy in 2005, the one I report on above, where she coordinates a smear campaign against then-minority CSD members, Lisa Schicker and Julie Tacker. That strategy did not work.

Another strategy in 2005, one day after the recall election, to have the people on her e-mail list contact Roger Briggs of the RWQCB and demand that the agency immediately begin fining the District and the property owners of Los Osos -- many elderly and on fixed incomes -- in order to "fine the CSD out of existence" and get the fate of her Tri-W project in the hands of the County. Although the project is in now under the county's control (I'm sure, due in large part to Nash-Karner's meddling), the LOCSD has yet to be fined out of existence. That strategy has not worked, yet.

And if you think for a moment, after reading about all of her silly little strategies over the years, that she's not behind the scenes, right now, desperately pulling whatever strings necessary to make sure that a sewer plant is built at Tri-W, then you don't know Pandora Nash-Karner.

She is Los Osos.

Please excuse me now, I need to go shower.

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