Hey, Pre-Paid Los Osos Sewer Assessment Folks? How's THIS taste?

So, picture this: You're a responsible Los Osos property owner, and you've been squirreling away a little money here and there, month after month, over the past several years, in anticipation of a whopping sewer assessment comin' down the pipe, just so you could pay the entire tax at once, and save a bundle by not having to pay interest rates over the ensuing years.

Then, after years of diligent, financial squirreling-ness, where you now have, sitting in your bank account, the $25,000 that the County of SLO will be collecting, eventually, from ALL property owners in Los Osos (well, most of them), to pay for their Los Osos sewer project, and the County finally comes a-callin', and says something like, "Hey, if there's anyone in Los Osos that wants to pay their entire sewer assessment up front, now's the time," you get to say, "I'd be happy to. After all, I think my town badly needs a sewer system, and I'm glad I can immediately help clean our water, plus, I'll be saving a good chunk of money by paying up front, so, it's all good," and then you, proudly, hand the County a $25,000 check.

This blog post is specifically for the first six property owners to go that responsible, reasonable route... and, oh, is this great!

I'm going to track what happened with the very first six pre-paid sewer assessments that were collected by the County.

In case you missed it, SLO County Supervisors, yesterday, at their weekly Tuesday meeting, approved, among other things, two payments to local consultants, as part of their update on their Los Osos wastewater project.

The first payment was for $86,000 to "Rick Engineering," for "design of the mid-town site restoration" [note: that's just for the "design"... not the "restoration" itself.]

The second payment was another $60,000 for the Wallace Group, for "engineering consulting services."

According to the staff report for that item, to pay for those consultants, County officials, for the first time in their four years-and-counting sewer project development process, are using funds that were collected from the pre-paid sewer assessments, that I just detailed above, that totaled just over $2 million, or, a tiny fraction of the property owners in Los Osos.

Prior to collecting those assessments, the County's entire development process -- some $8 million worth -- was paid for using County coffers from places like "the roads fund."

For the purpose of this piece, I'm going to take that $86,000 payment, and that $60,000 payment, and just round it off at $150,000, or, six pre-paid, $25,000 sewer assessments... the FIRST SIX, right out of the gate, poof! Gone... just like that [snap!].

And, at yesterday's meeting, here's where County Supervisors unanimously voted to spend that years and years worth of diligent financial squirreling:

$86,000 to "design the mid-town site restoration" -- a "site restoration" to a site that, all things being equal, WOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN TOUCHED in the first place, had:

1) The 2005 Los Osos CSD Board majority NOT deliberately set their own recall election date at one of the latest possible dates, when they had the opportunity to set that election date BEFORE they began ripping up the "mid-town site" in September of 2005, as I first exposed at this link:

http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2006/09/californias-recall-elections-code.html

... and this amazing link:

http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2010/07/los-osos-whos-your-quarter-million.html

AND;

2) Had former State Division of Financial Assistance official, Darrin Polhemus simply listened to me on the phone that day in August of 2005, when I originally called him just to get some question answered for a story, yet ended up explaining to him how he was about to make a gigantic mistake by releasing an illegal loan (according to his office's own policy) to the LOCSD, and then that illegal loan was going to be used to rip up the "mid-town" "Tri-W" site, as I first exposed at this link:

http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2005/08/sewerwatch-challenges-funding-for-los.html

HAD either of those tiny, easily accomplished, SIMPLE little things happened, the "mid-town site" wouldn't even need $86,000 worth of pre-paid sewer assessments to "restore," today.

Almost unimaginably, this story gets worse.

That second payment that Supervisors approved yesterday -- another $60,000 to the Wallace Group?

The Wallace Group... wait for it... was the Los Osos CSD's "District Engineer" in 2005, when they ripped up the Tri-W site for no reason whatsoever, to begin with!

In other words, the main reason the County has to spend that $86,000 to "design restoration" of the mid-town Tri-W site today, is because of the Wallace Group's disaster in 2005.

You can't make this stuff up: In the EXACT same meeting where County Supervisors coughed up $86,000 worth of pre-paid assessments to "design the mid-town site restoration" (which they are actually forced to do by the California Coastal Commission, as part of the development permit) -- a "restoration" that should have NEVER been needed in the first place -- they also cough up another $60,000 to the exact same engineers that were, in HUGE part, responsible for the site being ripped up, for no reason whatsoever, in 2005! -- the Wallace Group.

And, again, as with a lot of posts here at SewerWatch, here's where this entire mess goes flying off the rails, and into over-the-top-excellent-story-land, two things:

1) Right now, today, the County has sitting on its desks, a 2005 insurance policy, that was arranged by the 2005 (pre-recall) Los Osos CSD officials, specifically FOR the "mid-town site restoration," that would pay for nearly $250,000 (or TEN pre-paid assessments) of the overall cost to "restore the mid-town site," but for reasons that are not clear, they are NOT going to use it, as I first exposed at this excellent link:

http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2010/07/los-osos-whos-your-quarter-million.html

And, of course, to top it all off...

2) In the 2001 report that launched the Tri-W sewer project disaster in the first place, it reads:

"We (the Los Osos CSD, and the engineering firm, Montgomery Watson Harza) thank Paavo Ogren and Rob Miller of John L. Wallace (Group)..."

And, also of course, Paavo Ogren is now the Director of Public Works for SLO County, who keeps hiring his old friends at the Wallace Group, to clean up the mess they ALL got paid to make in Los Osos... years ago.

Poof! Six pre-paid assessments. Gone, for that.

Ann Calhoun calls the place, "Chinatown." I call it "Chinatown on Steroids."

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