Unlike My Mom's Garden Club, Taxpayers Watch Doesn't Have a Web Site
You know where Taxpayers Watch, the over-the-top-shady "citizens group" out of Los Osos, goes wrong?
They make for a helluva story. Big mistake.
I mean, c'mon... three guys get recalled from office, and then immediately form a "citizen's group" (Taxpayers Watch), and use their newly found, hidden identity in an attempt to "dissolve" (through a legal loop hole) the very government agency that they were recently recalled from -- an attempt that would end up costing them some $50,000 of their own money?
That's a great local story.
So many interesting updates from my previous story on this subject, where I showed how Taxpayers Watch fell behind on their $1k/month payments to a local government agency, LAFCO, and were forced to crawl back to LAFCO and beg for a "payment extension."
I also showed in that piece, how, the only reason Taxpayers Watch got stuck with those $1,000/month payments in the first place, was because LAFCO found their act to be so... ummm... reprehensible, that LAFCO put the "entire cost" of the dissolution process on Taxpayers Watch, for a whopping total of "$40,247.50."
In my original piece I wrote:
... the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) will consider a "request" by the shady citizens group, "Taxpayers Watch," to allow that group more time to pay off a nearly $30,000 bill they racked-up during their frivolous attempt to "dissolve" the Los Osos Community Services District beginning in 2006...
Turns out, that wasn't entirely correct.
Taxpayers Watch had to put up an additional $12+grand just to start the process.
"LAFCO’s original application fee was $12,500 which was a deposit towards the actual cost of processing the proposal. Additional staff time based on the activity log amounted to $27,747.50 for a total of $40,247.50," wrote, Paul Hood, executive officer for LAFCO, in an e-mail to SewerWatch.
"This covered the entire cost of processing the proposal to dissolve the LOCSD."
Over $40-thousand-dollars, and that doesn't even include their attorney fees for the "4 hearings over nine months."
Taxpayers Watch, which, by all indications, includes only about four-to-six people (and three of them appear to be recalled LOCSD Directors), likely spent over $50,000 in their attempt to "dissolve" the very government agency they were recently recalled from.
Extraordinary.
It also turns out that LAFCO was so adamant about getting their $40-grand back, that they actually sued Taxpayers Watch in Superior Court demanding payment. (Funny, I don't remember reading about that in the Trib.)
So -- and this is flat-out excellent -- to make that embarrassing lawsuit go away, "members" of Taxpayers Watch signed something called a "Stipulation for Entry of Judgement."
(That document, as you will see if you download that link, contains only four signatures from Taxpayers Watch types, Gordon Hensley (recalled CSD Director), Joyce Albright, Robert Crizer, and Sharon Fredericks. Only those four people are on the hook for that $40,247.50. If you ask me, that's where the "membership" of Taxpayers Watch ends --with those four. It's worth noting that recalled LOCSD Director, Richard LeGros's signature is NOT on the SEJ. Despite being one of the most vocal and visible supporters of Taxpayers Watch (and that's not saying much), he is NOT financially on the hook for that $40,247.50. What his role is in all of this, remains as mysterious as Taxpayers Watch themselves.)
The SEJ, a document straight out of the "Superior Court of California," includes a payment schedule.
According to the SEJ, "In no event will the balance (that Taxpayers Watch owes LAFCO) be paid later than June 30, 2008?"
Unless you ask.
Gotta love the sequence, huh?
"Members" of Taxpayers Watch sign a legal document (to settle an embarrassing lawsuit) that reads, "In no event will the balance be paid later than June 30, 2008," then they crawl back to LAFCO nearly two years later and request a payment extension, and LAFCO grants it, on July 31! (That should have been Taxpayers Watch's "extension" right there... that extra month.)
To appreciate the bizarreness of that ruling, you have to keep in mind two things:
1) LAFCO had already determined that the Los Osos CSD dissolution attempt was such bullshit, that they stuck Taxpayers Watch with the "entire cost" of the proceedings -- over $40k (beautiful... excellent job, Mr. Hood) -- and then LAFCO had to go so far as to sue Taxpayers Watch to get their money back.
And, 2) -- and this just blows my mind -- had Taxpayers Watch succeeded in dissolving the LOCSD, "between 48 and 82 million dollars in liabilities incurred by the LOCSD" would have transferred over to COUNTY taxpayers.
That quote, from Hood, is another excellent update to my previous story, where I originally wrote:
...had the dissolution attempt been successful, and the LOCSD had been wiped off the map, the millions upon millions of dollars in debt that the pre-recall board (aka: Taxpayers Watch) needlessly racked-up in the few weeks before the recall election (that they deliberately set at one of the latest possible dates), would have been transferred to county taxpayers...
When I wrote that, I wasn't aware that there was an official, ballpark figure on how much "liabilities" we were talkin' about.
Now, I am.
And it's mind-boggling: "between 48 and 82 million dollars."
Think about that for a second.
Had Taxpayers Watch succeeded in their end-around attempt at dissolving the LOCSD in 2006, county taxpayers would've been stuck paying for the "between 48 and 82 million dollar" Los Osos mess, and Taxpayers Watch -- a group comprised mainly of the people responsible for that very, very expensive mess -- didn't seem to care. They just wanted to punish the very government agency that they were recently, and democratically, recalled from.
Yet, when it came time to beg for a payment extension, county-taxpayer-funded LAFCO rewarded Taxpayers Watch, and granted them their extension.
Huh?
Initial reports indicated that the rationale behind granting the extension, was that it would save LAFCO money because they wouldn't have to pay the court fees associated with recovering their $9-large (the balance owed).
The: "It'll cost us $20-grand in court fees just to get our $9-grand," logic, if you will.
Which actually makes sense... had that logic actually added up.
The problem with that logic is -- and again, this is beautiful -- it only makes sense if Taxpayers Watch didn't have the $9,247 on them at the time of the hearing, July 31... and LAFCO knew it.
See what I mean there? It's a little tricky, but it's very interesting.
LAFCO Commissioners could have easily, and reasonably, said, "Request denied. That way to the county cashier's office. Next!," and Taxpayers Watch could have simply walked over to the county cashier's office, scratched out a check for $9,247, and everything would have been settled, immediately.
Not a penny in court costs for LAFCO.
Turns out, those initial reports were wrong.
The: "It'll cost us $20-grand in court fees to get our $9 grand," logic had nothing to do with the decision.
"The Commission’s decision was not based on whether Taxpayers Watch had the funds to pay off the entire $9,000 or the expense of enforcing the payment schedule in the SEOJ, which is an administrative matter (i.e. minimal costs) since they signed it," Hood wrote.
So, now it gets weird.
What was the real rationale behind granting the extension? It's not like Taxpayers Watch did LAFCO, and county taxpayers, any favors.
So, why the special treatment? After all, public comment on the matter ran at about a 5-1 clip to NOT grant the extension.
"Virtually all promissory notes and similar instruments contain a due date. The creditor always has the authority to extend the due date. In this case, the Commission concluded that the request was reasonable under the circumstances," Hood wrote.
And those "circumstances" arrrrre... what?
"The circumstances are that Taxpayers Watch has made 17 payments of $1,000 on or before the first of every month as specified in the Stipulation for Entry of Judgment. We have no reason to believe that this payment schedule will not continue."
Bizarre.
Even though Taxpayers Watch clearly wasted LAFCO's time for "4 hearings over nine months," even though the dissolution attempt proved to be nothing more than recalled Directors abusing the system to punish the very government agency they were recalled from, and even though that purely vindictive dissolution effort would have cost COUNTY taxpayers "between 48 and 82 million dollars" had it succeeded, and even though LAFCO Chairwoman, Barbara Mann said, "It was not right for the citizens of the County to pay for Los Osos’ problems," and even though "members" of Taxpayers Watch signed a legal document that reads, "In no event will the balance be paid later than June 30, 2008," LAFCO (funded by county taxpayers, including cities) still grants Taxpayers Watch a huge favor by handing them an extension... when they could have just NOT granted it, and immediately wiped their hands of the matter -- a matter that's been dragging on since January, 2006.
That LAFCO ruling makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Hell-uv-a-story, I said.
Personally, my favorite part of the Taxpayers Watch story is their over-the-top shadiness.
With everything they have going on -- their bitter, vindictive lawsuits, their failed dissolution attempts, their silly petitions -- unlike my Mom's garden club, they don't even have a web site. And the last time I checked, my Mom's garden club wasn't running around, spending $50,000 dissolving government agencies.
See, Taxpayers Watch? That's where you screw up. You're intriguing. That's the exact same problem Pandora Nash-Karner has in Los Osos. She makes for a dynamite story.
Journalistically speaking, all-y'all are the best.
###
They make for a helluva story. Big mistake.
I mean, c'mon... three guys get recalled from office, and then immediately form a "citizen's group" (Taxpayers Watch), and use their newly found, hidden identity in an attempt to "dissolve" (through a legal loop hole) the very government agency that they were recently recalled from -- an attempt that would end up costing them some $50,000 of their own money?
That's a great local story.
So many interesting updates from my previous story on this subject, where I showed how Taxpayers Watch fell behind on their $1k/month payments to a local government agency, LAFCO, and were forced to crawl back to LAFCO and beg for a "payment extension."
I also showed in that piece, how, the only reason Taxpayers Watch got stuck with those $1,000/month payments in the first place, was because LAFCO found their act to be so... ummm... reprehensible, that LAFCO put the "entire cost" of the dissolution process on Taxpayers Watch, for a whopping total of "$40,247.50."
In my original piece I wrote:
... the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) will consider a "request" by the shady citizens group, "Taxpayers Watch," to allow that group more time to pay off a nearly $30,000 bill they racked-up during their frivolous attempt to "dissolve" the Los Osos Community Services District beginning in 2006...
Turns out, that wasn't entirely correct.
Taxpayers Watch had to put up an additional $12+grand just to start the process.
"LAFCO’s original application fee was $12,500 which was a deposit towards the actual cost of processing the proposal. Additional staff time based on the activity log amounted to $27,747.50 for a total of $40,247.50," wrote, Paul Hood, executive officer for LAFCO, in an e-mail to SewerWatch.
"This covered the entire cost of processing the proposal to dissolve the LOCSD."
Over $40-thousand-dollars, and that doesn't even include their attorney fees for the "4 hearings over nine months."
Taxpayers Watch, which, by all indications, includes only about four-to-six people (and three of them appear to be recalled LOCSD Directors), likely spent over $50,000 in their attempt to "dissolve" the very government agency they were recently recalled from.
Extraordinary.
It also turns out that LAFCO was so adamant about getting their $40-grand back, that they actually sued Taxpayers Watch in Superior Court demanding payment. (Funny, I don't remember reading about that in the Trib.)
So -- and this is flat-out excellent -- to make that embarrassing lawsuit go away, "members" of Taxpayers Watch signed something called a "Stipulation for Entry of Judgement."
(That document, as you will see if you download that link, contains only four signatures from Taxpayers Watch types, Gordon Hensley (recalled CSD Director), Joyce Albright, Robert Crizer, and Sharon Fredericks. Only those four people are on the hook for that $40,247.50. If you ask me, that's where the "membership" of Taxpayers Watch ends --with those four. It's worth noting that recalled LOCSD Director, Richard LeGros's signature is NOT on the SEJ. Despite being one of the most vocal and visible supporters of Taxpayers Watch (and that's not saying much), he is NOT financially on the hook for that $40,247.50. What his role is in all of this, remains as mysterious as Taxpayers Watch themselves.)
The SEJ, a document straight out of the "Superior Court of California," includes a payment schedule.
According to the SEJ, "In no event will the balance (that Taxpayers Watch owes LAFCO) be paid later than June 30, 2008?"
Unless you ask.
Gotta love the sequence, huh?
"Members" of Taxpayers Watch sign a legal document (to settle an embarrassing lawsuit) that reads, "In no event will the balance be paid later than June 30, 2008," then they crawl back to LAFCO nearly two years later and request a payment extension, and LAFCO grants it, on July 31! (That should have been Taxpayers Watch's "extension" right there... that extra month.)
To appreciate the bizarreness of that ruling, you have to keep in mind two things:
1) LAFCO had already determined that the Los Osos CSD dissolution attempt was such bullshit, that they stuck Taxpayers Watch with the "entire cost" of the proceedings -- over $40k (beautiful... excellent job, Mr. Hood) -- and then LAFCO had to go so far as to sue Taxpayers Watch to get their money back.
And, 2) -- and this just blows my mind -- had Taxpayers Watch succeeded in dissolving the LOCSD, "between 48 and 82 million dollars in liabilities incurred by the LOCSD" would have transferred over to COUNTY taxpayers.
That quote, from Hood, is another excellent update to my previous story, where I originally wrote:
...had the dissolution attempt been successful, and the LOCSD had been wiped off the map, the millions upon millions of dollars in debt that the pre-recall board (aka: Taxpayers Watch) needlessly racked-up in the few weeks before the recall election (that they deliberately set at one of the latest possible dates), would have been transferred to county taxpayers...
When I wrote that, I wasn't aware that there was an official, ballpark figure on how much "liabilities" we were talkin' about.
Now, I am.
And it's mind-boggling: "between 48 and 82 million dollars."
Think about that for a second.
Had Taxpayers Watch succeeded in their end-around attempt at dissolving the LOCSD in 2006, county taxpayers would've been stuck paying for the "between 48 and 82 million dollar" Los Osos mess, and Taxpayers Watch -- a group comprised mainly of the people responsible for that very, very expensive mess -- didn't seem to care. They just wanted to punish the very government agency that they were recently, and democratically, recalled from.
Yet, when it came time to beg for a payment extension, county-taxpayer-funded LAFCO rewarded Taxpayers Watch, and granted them their extension.
Huh?
Initial reports indicated that the rationale behind granting the extension, was that it would save LAFCO money because they wouldn't have to pay the court fees associated with recovering their $9-large (the balance owed).
The: "It'll cost us $20-grand in court fees just to get our $9-grand," logic, if you will.
Which actually makes sense... had that logic actually added up.
The problem with that logic is -- and again, this is beautiful -- it only makes sense if Taxpayers Watch didn't have the $9,247 on them at the time of the hearing, July 31... and LAFCO knew it.
See what I mean there? It's a little tricky, but it's very interesting.
LAFCO Commissioners could have easily, and reasonably, said, "Request denied. That way to the county cashier's office. Next!," and Taxpayers Watch could have simply walked over to the county cashier's office, scratched out a check for $9,247, and everything would have been settled, immediately.
Not a penny in court costs for LAFCO.
Turns out, those initial reports were wrong.
The: "It'll cost us $20-grand in court fees to get our $9 grand," logic had nothing to do with the decision.
"The Commission’s decision was not based on whether Taxpayers Watch had the funds to pay off the entire $9,000 or the expense of enforcing the payment schedule in the SEOJ, which is an administrative matter (i.e. minimal costs) since they signed it," Hood wrote.
So, now it gets weird.
What was the real rationale behind granting the extension? It's not like Taxpayers Watch did LAFCO, and county taxpayers, any favors.
So, why the special treatment? After all, public comment on the matter ran at about a 5-1 clip to NOT grant the extension.
"Virtually all promissory notes and similar instruments contain a due date. The creditor always has the authority to extend the due date. In this case, the Commission concluded that the request was reasonable under the circumstances," Hood wrote.
And those "circumstances" arrrrre... what?
"The circumstances are that Taxpayers Watch has made 17 payments of $1,000 on or before the first of every month as specified in the Stipulation for Entry of Judgment. We have no reason to believe that this payment schedule will not continue."
Bizarre.
Even though Taxpayers Watch clearly wasted LAFCO's time for "4 hearings over nine months," even though the dissolution attempt proved to be nothing more than recalled Directors abusing the system to punish the very government agency they were recalled from, and even though that purely vindictive dissolution effort would have cost COUNTY taxpayers "between 48 and 82 million dollars" had it succeeded, and even though LAFCO Chairwoman, Barbara Mann said, "It was not right for the citizens of the County to pay for Los Osos’ problems," and even though "members" of Taxpayers Watch signed a legal document that reads, "In no event will the balance be paid later than June 30, 2008," LAFCO (funded by county taxpayers, including cities) still grants Taxpayers Watch a huge favor by handing them an extension... when they could have just NOT granted it, and immediately wiped their hands of the matter -- a matter that's been dragging on since January, 2006.
That LAFCO ruling makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Hell-uv-a-story, I said.
Personally, my favorite part of the Taxpayers Watch story is their over-the-top shadiness.
With everything they have going on -- their bitter, vindictive lawsuits, their failed dissolution attempts, their silly petitions -- unlike my Mom's garden club, they don't even have a web site. And the last time I checked, my Mom's garden club wasn't running around, spending $50,000 dissolving government agencies.
See, Taxpayers Watch? That's where you screw up. You're intriguing. That's the exact same problem Pandora Nash-Karner has in Los Osos. She makes for a dynamite story.
Journalistically speaking, all-y'all are the best.
###
posted by Ron at
12:29 PM
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