Exposed: The Karner Confession

[Note: I've been meaning to wrap up this loose end -- what I call, "The Karner Confession" -- for awhile, now. It's great, but I just never got around to publishing it. That's about to change.]

One of the (many) things I love about the Los Osos couple of Gary Karner and Pandora Nash-Karner, the two people most responsible for the past 13-years-and-counting of the Los Osos sewer disaster, as I have repeatedly shown in my 13-years-and-counting reporting on this story, including in one of my New Times cover stories in July of 2000, is that the story the Karners have concocted over the years, to deflect the fact that they are the two people most responsible for the past 13-years-and-counting of the Los Osos sewer disaster, is so convoluted, so tangled, and spans so much time, that they can't keep their story straight year-over-year, and every time they make a mistake (and they make a lot of them), I'm there to pounce on it.

Well... POUNCE!

To put this particular set of fascinating dots together, I want to start with some of my past reporting on this subject -- on how the Karners, beginning in late 1997, hatched a plan to trick Los Osos voters into forming a Los Osos Community Services District, using a fake, made-up sewer "project" that the Karners seemingly just threw together in their living room, solely so they could use their fake, made-up, "better, cheaper faster," project as nothing more than a tool to form a "Community Services District" in Los Osos, and then immediately begin to make money off of their CSD, via their fake project, by hiring Gary Karner's firm, the SWA Group.

Which is exactly what happened, as I've exposed numerous times on my blog, including at this link:

http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2009/07/exclusive-sewerwatch-investigation-how.html

And, if you're new to SewerWatch, here's the GIGANTIC twist in all of this:

In 1998, the County of SLO had a sewer project "ready to go" in Los Osos, estimated at about $70/month. I remember that project clearly, because in 1998, I was the editor of The Bay Breeze (now The Bay News) in Los Osos, where I first created my regular feature, SewerWatch. So, I had a front row seat to the absolutely fascinating set of circumstances that led to the formation of the Los Osos CSD, in 1998.

In fact, I point to that front row seat from 1998, as the reason why I scoop ALL other media, on nearly every excellent Los Osos sewer story (too many to mention) over the past decade-plus, because of my deep, 1998 roots with this amazing story.

And, now, due to those roots, and my continuous reporting on this story, this "Karner Confession" that I'm about to put together here, will blow your back, and the ONLY place you'll see this, is here, in SewerWatch... and I've never published this sequence of dots before... and it's great.

So, again, I want to set the stage in Los Osos, in 1998. (It doesn't matter where you live. If you have the slightest interest in government, or just a great story, for that matter, this is flat-out excellent):

In 1998:

The County of SLO has a sewer project "ready to go" for Los Osos, at about $70/month.

The governing body in Los Osos is a "Community Services Advisory" board, meaning it has no legal teeth whatsoever, and can only advise the County Board of Supervisors regarding the sewer project.

The Karners, throughout 1998, are fully aware that if they could just convince (read: trick) the town's voters to create a Community Services District in that year's November election, the newly formed CSD would have legal teeth, including official power over the town's "wastewater," and the Karners would then have the power to dump the County's "ready to go" project, and officially pursue their "better, cheaper, faster" project, that they -- a marketing specialist, and a landscaper -- tossed together in their living room.

I'm the editor of the local paper (I was also a reporter in the town in the early 1990s), and I'm closely following how the County of SLO has a sewer project that's "ready to go" for Los Osos, after millions of dollars, and years spent on design, but I'm also closely following how the Karners are heavily marketing their "alternative" sewer project throughout Los Osos as "better, cheaper, faster" than the County's "ready to go" project.

(In her marketing material aimed at Los Osos voters throughout 1998, Nash-Karner said that her and her husband's project would have a "maximum monthly payment of $38.75/month," and she called the County's project "ruinously expensive.")

So, in that setting, I watch, and report, on how, at every opportunity throughout 1998, the Karners fight the County's project, through a massive PR campaign, developed by Nash-Karner, a marketing professional, that saturates Los Osos, and that over-the-top promotes their "project," and over-the-top slams the County's "ready to go" project.

Her PR campaign works, and Los Osos voters bite hard at the "better, cheaper, faster" bait, and elect to form the Los Osos CSD in November 1998, and elect Pandora Nash-Karner as the #1 vote-getter as a director on the initial LOCSD Board, in that same election.

Here's the link:

http://www.smartvoter.org/1998nov/ca/slo/race/109/

Almost immediately, in March of 1999, the new CSD Board, led by Pandora Nash-Karner, dumps the County's "ready to go" project, and begins pursuit of her and her husband's "better, cheaper, faster" project.

And, as I first exposed in New Times, waaaay back in the summer of 2000, after a nearly two-year futile pursuit, the Karners' "better, cheaper, faster" "project," that they heavily sold to Los Osos voters, and was solely responsible for forming the LOCSD in the first place (a gigantic mistake, as almost all of those 1998 voters will tell you today), AND was also solely responsible for torpedoing the County's "ready to go" project, failed.

So, dear reader, at this point in my story, you need to do no more than to just put yourself in the shoes of Pandora Nash-Karner and Gary Karner in the summer of 2000 to understand the scope of the story that they had to concoct -- and, to this day, still need to concoct -- to deflect away the fact that they are the two people most responsible -- directly responsible -- for creating the colossal Los Osos sewer disaster.

To put their story in perspective in 2011, had the Karners simply NOT heavily marketed their ill-fated "better, cheaper, faster" project in Los Osos, throughout 1998, the County's "ready to go" project, almost certainly, would have been built starting in 19-freaking-97!, at about $70/month.

Almost unimaginably, this story gets better... a lot better.

While at The Bay Breeze in the summer of 1998, several months before the November election, I scooped (of course) the rest of the local media on the results of a county funded study -- the Questa Study -- that showed across the board, that the County's project was far superior than the Karners' plan... not surprisingly, considering, like I wrote above, she's a marketing specialist and he's a landscaper. (The County's project from the 1990s was developed by, you know, engineers.)

Nash-Karner, as part of her marketing campaign, instantly, and widely (of course), bashed, discredited, and scorched-earthed anything and everything that had to do with the Questa Study -- the author, the author's company, SLO County government... anything. (And, also of course, two years later, the Questa Study would prove to be 100-percent accurate.)

However, what I didn't know at the time, was that there was A LOT more evidence in 1998 that showed that the Karners' project simply wasn't going to work in Los Osos.

I am not a wastewater engineer. So when, as a newspaper editor, I get saturated with technical information on a "better, cheaper, faster" sewer "alternative," as Nash-Karner did to me throughout 1998, all I can do is try to present it in an objective fashion.

Oh, if I had only known then, what I know now.

After a decade of unraveling the Karners' tangled, convoluted, manufactured story, I can now show how the Karners KNEW -- long BEFORE the November 1998 election -- that their "project" simply wasn't going to work in Los Osos.

For example, at this link:

http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2010/11/best-if-only-ever-all-karners-had-to-do.html

... I show how the local Water Quality Control Board, sent a letter, addressed directly to the Karners, with specific details showing them, clearly, that their so-called "project" simply wasn't going to work in Los Osos.

That letter was sent in January of 1998. The Karners first rolled out their "better, cheaper, faster" project in November of 1997.

To be clear, that letter showed up in the Karners' mail box less than two months after they first rolled out their (ultimately disastrous) "project."

And, now, I can show, using my usual spectacular SewerWatch journalism gymnastics, that the Karners, themselves, ADMIT to knowing that their project wasn't going to work, and they knew it nearly a full year before that November 1998 election, yet continued to heavily market their dead-on-arrival project as "better, cheaper, faster," all the way up to the November election, and it was ALL lies, and they knew it.

Ladies and gents, SewerWatch proudly presents, for the first time anywhere: The Karner Confession

In a bizzare 2005 document authored by the Karners, that I've hilariously titled, Karner's Rambling Manifesto, they attempt to defend their (indefensible) actions in 1998, but, just like I wrote above, their story is so tangled, and so convoluted, and spans so many years, that they can't keep it straight, and every time they attempt to recount it, they make HUGE mistakes, like they do in Karner's Rambling Manifesto.

In that document, the Karners write:

"Mr. Paul Jagger acting for Roger Briggs of the RWQCB in a letter dated January 23, 1998 [Note: that's the letter I refer to above] inferred that 100% of the septic tanks in Los Osos would have to be replaced..."

and;

"When the RWQCB demanded that the entire Prohibition Zone be collected and treated, the AIWPS pond capacity to treat the collected area grew to a point where it required far more land capacity than was reasonably available at the Tri-W/Morro Shores site. The cost for land and construction became prohibitive."

and;

"The cumulative system expansion and costs blew the ("better, cheaper, faster" sewer) proposal out of the water..." [bolding mine]

Then write, "THIS PROPOSED ("better, cheaper, faster" sewer project) FAILED ! ! !"

Wow. A better example of how sloppy the Karners get with their incredibly convoluted and tangled story, I can not think of.

Look what they did there, in that 2005 document. It's great!:

They actually confess, in their own widely circulated document, to knowing that their "better, cheaper, faster" project was already blown "out of the water" in January of 1998 -- they ADMIT it -- yet, throughout 1998, they still over-the-top hyped their known-to-be-dead-on-arrival project as "better, cheaper, faster" than the County's "ready to go" project, and ALL of it -- the "better, cheaper, faster," the "maximum monthly payment of $38.75/month" -- all of it, a complete pack of lies, and they knew it, as they now inadvertently admit. (Ooooooooops!)

And now, the spectacular finish to my journalism gymnastics routine:

[Run, spring (mad air, of course), double twist]

As I first exposed at this link:

http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2009/07/exclusive-sewerwatch-investigation-how.html

... in the 1997 document where the Karners outline their known-to-be-dead-on-arrival project, they write:

"(We are) deeply indebted to the following firms and individuals who have contributed their services in developing this ("better, cheaper, faster") Plan at pro-bono or reduced rates... We recommend (these) firms be retained for professional design services when this Plan is accepted." [Note the use of the word "when," in, "when this Plan is accepted." That was in 1997.]

And, one of those firms "recommended" by the Karners to be "retained for professional design services" "when" their project was "accepted:" "SWA Group, of Sausal¡to, California."

And, of course, as I also first exposed, nowhere in that document does it disclose that Gary Karner is, "in private practice with The SWA Group, Planners and Landscape Architects, with an international practice and eight offices nationally, as a Managing Principal and Senior Project Manager of the firm. He specialized in project management and risk management with SWA for 27 years and is currently retained by SWA to consult on risk management."

... according to his own bio.

[double somersault, leap (more mad air), double back-flip]

And, of course, shortly after the Karners tricked Los Osos into establishing the LOCSD (and therefore killing the County's "ready to go" project) just so they could pursue their known-to-be-dead-on-arrival project, official LOCSD documents associated with the sewer project, and with Pandora Nash-Karner as District "vice-president," begin to contain the words "SWA Group"... of course.



[tuck, land, cartwheel, cartwheel, back handspring (crazy air), triple twist back-flip]

And, right now, in 2011, if you go to this link:

http://slocounty.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=25&clip_id=1023&meta_id=203010

... you can watch, on the County's own web site, from just last January, SLO County Supervisors, Bruce Gibson and Jim Patterson praising Nash-Karner for her 20 years (20 years!) as an official appointment to the SLO County Parks Commission, a position that not only grants her access to influential County officials (that none of us regular folk get), and where she has ALL of their ears, but also affords her the protection of chief County Counsel, Warren Jensen, because, as a SLO County Parks Commissioner, she's Warren Jensen's client, which means that if something is good for Los Osos, but bad for his client, as is often the case (as you can imagine, considering what she did to Los Osos), Jensen is duty-bound to protect his client, over the good of Los Osos.

[Nails the landing... of course.]

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