Ian Parkinson? Meet, Warren Jensen. Warren Jensen? Meet, Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris? Meet, Ian Parkinson. Ian Parkinson? Meet. . .

As if this will make a bit of difference in anything, but, last April, I sent an e-mail to the SLO County Sheriff's Department (with Ian Parkinson as the SLO County Sheriff), asking them to investigate an apparent air-tight case of massive fraud in Los Osos.

Five months passed, and I never received a reply. So, earlier this month (September), I sent the Sheriff's office another e-mail asking for the case number that they assigned to my case.

Not surprisingly, it turns out that the Sheriff's office completely ignored my original complaint, and all of the primary-source evidence I included in it.

What follows in this blog post is flat-out extraordinary in the history of San Luis Obispo County. What it shows, is that the people behind the massive fraud in Los Osos have figured out the perfect crime -- a multi-million dollar fraud against the People of California, that is illegal to prosecute.

An amazing story. Yes, an extremely complex story, but once you wrap your mind around it, probably the most important story in the history of SLO County, and the only place you'll see it, is here, in SewerWatch.

Here's my original e-mail to SLO County Sheriff public information officer, Rob Bryn, sent 4/25/11:

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Hello Mr. Bryn,

I would like to file a criminal complaint with the SLO Sheriff's office, but, my complaint (below) is very unusual, I'm sure, and so I'm not sure how to go about filing it, and, considering that you have been of great help in the past, I was hoping you could help point me in the right direction.

I found a definition of the crime I am alleging, at this link:

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/fraudulent-concealment.html

And it's:

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fraudulent concealment  
Definition
Deliberate hiding, non-disclosure, or suppression of a material fact or circumstance (which one is legally or morally bound to reveal) with intent to deceive or defraud in a contractual arrangement.
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And, before I get into the details of my complaint, it's important to point out, that, according to my research (and I'm certainly no lawyer), "fraudulent concealment" does something called "tolls" the Statute of Limitations, which, as I understand it, due to the "concealment"-ness of the crime, the Statute of Limitations clock doesn't even start ticking until the alleged crime is reported, which is what this e-mail is.

And that -- the "tolling" of the SOL -- is very important in this case, because the "fraudulent concealment" I am alleging happened in 2004, in Los Osos, and resulted in unbelievably disastrous, and very expensive damages to the People of California.

I'm alleging "fraudulent concealment" against the 2004 Los Osos Community Services District, and their contracted (at the time) engineering firm, Montgomery Watson Harza.

I first reported the details for my case of alleged "fraudulent concealment," at this link:

http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2009/10/fraudulent-concealment.html

... and, for the most part, all of the evidence your department needs to see my case for  "fraudulent concealment" can be found at that link.

As you'll see in the primary evidence that I first exposed in that piece, the 2004 LOCSD, and MWH lied to the Coastal Commission in a critical document, titled, Exhibit 3-C: MWH Memo comparing costs of TriW with Andre, and "deliberately hid... material fact(s)" by grossly low-balling their cost estimates in that report, and then concluded in Exhibit 3-C  that there was no "economic incentive" in 2004 to do what SLO County officials just spent the past four years and over $8 million worth of analysis discovering: That there was a LOT of "economic incentive" in 2004 to build the sewer plant for the Los Osos sewer project out of town.

As you'll read in my above-linked piece, MWH and 2004 LOCSD officials did what I call a "double lie," or "double fraudulent concealment," in Exhibit 3-C:

1) They "non-disclosed" (clearly) millions of dollars worth of park amenities, and their O&M costs (which, interestingly, turned out to be more than the cost of the amenities themselves) in Exhibit 3-C, when Exhibit 3-C was part of the EXACT overall document -- "June 28, 2004 LOCSD Response to the California Coastal Commission" -- that reads:

"... the (LOCSD) Board on June 17, 2004 agreed to add the picnic area, tot lot, amphitheater, and community garden (to the Tri-W sewer plant)," yet they failed to include the cost of those amenities in their Exhibit 3-C study, which, as I also first exposed at my above-mentioned story, would be estimated by MWH, just a few months later, at over $2.3 million.

2) Lie #2 in Exhibit 3-C, is, as I first exposed in my above-linked story, how the 2004 LOCSD and MWH laughably low-balled the cost of the one park amenity they DID account for in Exhibit 3-C -- the "Off-leash dog park."

In Exhibit 3-C, where low-balled figures favored the disastrous Tri-W project, the dog park is estimated by MWH at "$60,000," yet, just a few months later, the same engineering firm, MWH, in the same document where they (finally... post-Exhibit 3-C) account for the $2.3 million in park amenities cost, estimates that exact same dog park at "$690,000."

To put that number in dramatic perspective, Exhibit 3-C details such things as a "creek easement" at "$30,000," yet, MWH, in that document, "deliberately" (apparently) "suppressed" $630,000 of the REAL cost of just the dog park, alone.

So, look what happened with Exhibit 3-C. It's striking.

In the EXACT same overall document where the LOCSD Board "agreed to add" $2.3 million (plus O&M) of park amenities -- "June 28, 2004 LOCSD Response to the California Coastal Commission" -- District officials, and MWH, "deliberately," and obviously, "hid" that cost in Exhibit 3-C, and then concluded in that document, in 2004, that there was no "economic incentive" to do what County officials just showed actually saves tens of millions of dollars: build the sewer plant out of town.

And here's how the People of California are victims of this alleged crime:

HAD the 2004 LOCSD and MWH not lied to the Coastal Commission in Exhibit 3-C by "deliberately" (and laughably extremely) low-balling their cost estimates in that critical document, it would have changed the entire conclusion of that study, to where there was A LOT of "economic incentive" to relocate the sewer plant out of town, in 2004, which is the exact project that SLO County officials are developing in 2011-and-counting.

HAD the 2004 LOCSD and MWH not lied to the Coastal Commission in Exhibit 3-C, there would have been absolutely no reason whatsoever to retain the ultimately disastrous mid-town "Tri-W" sewer plant in 2004, because Exhibit 3-C (utilizing REAL, non-fraudulently concealed numbers) would have decisively concluded that there was massive "economic incentive" to relocate the sewer plant, in 2004, PLUS, the project's EIR concluded that sites "adjacent" to the Andre site (i.e. the "Giacomazzi site") are "environmentally superior" to the mid-town site.

Turns out, using real, non-"hidden," non-"fraudulent concealment" cost estimates, relocating the sewer plant to the site "adjacent" to the Andre site in 2004 was MUCH cheaper, AND environmentally superior, so, it's a no-brainer: The Los Osos sewer plant would have "relocated" out of town starting in 2004 (instead of 2010-and-counting), HAD the 2004 LOCSD and MWH not lied to the Coastal Commission in Exhibit 3-C.

As you'll read in my link above, the "hypothetical Andre" site MWH mentions in Exhibit 3-C, that is located "adjacent to the Andre site," turned out to be the "Giacomazzi site" that County officials spent the past four years-and-counting, and over $8 million showing is the way to go for Los Osos.

And, all of that means, that HAD the 2004 LOCSD and MWH not lied to the Coastal Commission in Exhibit 3-C, every penny that has been spent by the State of California and the County of San Luis Obispo dealing with the Los Osos sewer project since June 28, 2004, would have never been spent.

And, perhaps even more importantly, the State's water, that is allegedly being polluted by the septic tanks in Los Osos, would have started to be cleaned up in 2004, instead of 2011-and-counting... HAD the 2004 LOCSD and MWH not lied to the Coastal Commission in Exhibit 3-C.

So that's the horrendous crime against the People of California that I want to officially report to the SLO County Sheriff's Department: Fraudulent Concealment (which "tolls" the Statute of Limitations), by the 2004 LOCSD and Montgomery Watson Harza, when, in their document titled, "June 28, 2004 Response to CCC," where the 2004 LOCSD Board "agreed to add" over $2.3 million (plus O&M) of park amenities, they also deliberately hid over $5 million (at least) in those amenity and O&M costs in their cost estimates in that document's "Exhibit 3-C," and deliberately (and grossly) low-balled their cost estimates for the few amenities they did account for -- cost estimates which they were "legally and morally bound to reveal" -- "with the intent to deceive" the California Coastal Commission into approving the disastrous Tri-W project, and it worked.

According to the documents found in "June 28, 2004 LOCSD Response to the California Coastal Commission," the Los Osos CSD officials at the time were District Directors, Stan Gustafson, Gordon Hensley, Richard LeGros, Frank Freiler, and Rose Bowker (now deceased).

The District's General Manager was Bruce Buel (now deceased).

Its utilities manager was George Milanes.

And the "District Engineer" for the LOCSD in 2004 was/is Rob Miller, of the Wallace Group.

The evidence that (clearly) shows the (alleged) fraudulent concealment is:

"June 28, 2004 LOCSD Response to the California Coastal Commission," where both Exhibit 3-C AND how the District "agreed to add" the $2.3 million (plus O&M) in park amenities to their Tri-W sewer plant, is found

and;

- The District's 2005 Value Engineering report, where MWH finally accounts for the $2.3 million in park amenities, including the dog park at "$690,000," after first estimating it at "$60,000" in Exhibit 3-C.

If you could just forward this email to the proper authorities within your department that handle these types of crimes, I would very much appreciate it.

And, if you, or someone else at your office, have any questions, or if you need anything else from me to officially process my complaint, please just ask.

Thanks,
Ron
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Five months passed, and Bryn never replied. So, earlier this month, I sent this e-mail:

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Hello Mr. Bryn,

I just wanted to quickly follow-up on my e-mail to you, originally sent on 4/25/11, and check in to see how the investigation is coming along.

Also, please e-mail me the case number that was assigned to my complaint. It'll make it easier for me to reference for future follow-ups.

Thank you,
Ron
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Bryn finally replied:

"The Sheriff is aware of your allegations and does not agree with your opinion that this should be investigated by the Sheriff's Office. He recommends that you contact County Council [sic] or the Attorney General's Office to provide you further direction or legal advice."

Which prompted this response from me:

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Hello Mr. Bryn,

Thank you VERY much for your informative response.

In it, you write:

"... your opinion that this should be investigated by the Sheriff's Office."

Here's where this gets even more interesting.

It's actually not my "opinion" that the SLO County Sheriff's should investigate my complaint. It's more of just a simple process of elimination.

For example, you write:

"(Sheriff Parkinson) recommends that you contact County Council or the Attorney General's Office to provide you further direction or legal advice."

Here's the huge problem with that:

Many of the people involved with my complaint are County Counsel's current clients.

Which means, interestingly, he is duty-bound to NOT investigate my complaint.

Similarly, due to the deliberate (and gross) low-balling of the numbers that I allege in my complaint (that directly led to years and years of continued pollution in the county, and wasted millions upon millions of public dollars... due solely to the deliberate low-balling), numerous State agencies, like the California Coastal Commission, mistakenly approved a disastrous, now-failed, public works non-"project," which means those State agencies are on the hook for approving that now-failed disaster, because they got hoodwinked (for lack of a better word) by those deliberately (and grossly) low-balled numbers, which directly led to all of that added pollution and wasted millions of public dollars, and on the Attorney General's web site, at this link:

http://ag.ca.gov/consumers/general/government.php

... it reads:

"The Attorney General's Office is frequently unable to represent or assist individuals regarding non-criminal complaints against state agencies because this office is required by law to represent those agencies in disputes arising out of their actions."

... which means that, when it comes to my complaint, the Attorney General's office is in the exact same situation as the SLO County Counsel's office -- the AG is also duty-bound to NOT investigate my complaint. (In fact, now that I think about it, it's actually illegal for the AG's office to investigate my complaint, because they are "required by law to represent those agencies in disputes arising out of their actions."

So, they can't investigate my complaint. It would be illegal for them to do so.

Which leaves the SLO County Sheriff's office.

So, to be clear, it's not my "opinion" that my complaint "should be investigated by the Sheriff's Office," it's that there's nowhere else to go with it.

County Counsel is duty-bound to NOT investigate my complaint (because it involves several of his own clients), and it's actually illegal for the AG's office to investigate it.

Plus, I will point out, that at the AG's web site, at this link:

http://oag.ca.gov/report-crime

... it reads:

"To report a crime that has or may have occurred in California, dial 9-1-1 or contact your local law enforcement agency... List of Local Sheriff's Offices in California"

and then on that list, at this link:

http://www.usacops.com/ca/s93401/index.html

... it reads:

San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office

Sheriff
Patrick Hedges

1585 Kansas Ave
San Luis Obispo, California 93401
(805)781-4550

(Sounds like usacops.com needs to update its listing ; -)

So, I'm not too sure what to do here. Who do I report this seemingly clear-cut crime to?

Let me ask you this: Would it help if I also requested that the investigation be "walled off" from Undersheriff, Martin Basti?

According to my research, Mr. Basti (lived) in Los Osos, and like, County Counsel, Warren Jensen, is also on a long-time, first-name basis with many of the people involved in my complaint.

So, maybe if we could remove that obvious conflict -- the "Undersheriff being friends with the people in my complaint" conflict -- then maybe the Sheriff's Office could then investigate my complaint.

Would that help? "Walling off" Undersheriff Basti from my complaint?

Thank you again for your time on this important matter,
Ron
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Of course, Bryn never replied to that e-mail, so, about a week ago, I sent this follow-up e-mail:

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Hello Mr. Bryn,

Sorry to bother you again with this, but I'm getting ready to write a blog post about how the SLO County Sheriff's office refuses to investigate how a local government agency (in an unincorporated part of SLO County [read: Sheriff jurisdiction]) along with a multi-national engineering firm, lied to the California Coastal Commission in 2004, by deliberately low-balling and hiding the actual cost of a $150 million public works project, and then telling the CCC, in an official document, that the only reason they couldn't move that public works project to the "environmentally preferable" location in 2004, was because there was no "economic incentive" to do so.

And how, if that government agency had NOT lied to the CCC in 2004, by lying to the CCC, in an official document, about the REAL cost of their project, nearly the exact same public works project that the County concluded, in 2010, after five years and some $8 million worth of analysis, is the way to go, would have been built starting in 2004.

In other words, had that government agency NOT lied to the CCC in 2004, nearly the exact same public works project that was recently approved in 2010, would have been approved in 2004, and the past six-years-and-counting of pollution that that public works project is supposed to fix, would have never happened, in addition to the multi-millions of public dollars that have also been spent on that project since 2004.

So, in my blog post, I'm going to report how I showed your office this evidence -- primary source evidence, I want to emphasize -- and that the SLO County Sheriff told me, "The Sheriff is aware of your allegations and does not agree with your opinion that this should be investigated by the Sheriff's Office. He recommends that you contact County Council or the Attorney General's Office to provide you further direction or legal advice."

And that was that.

However, before I report that, I wanted to make doubly-sure that your office still believes this case should not "be investigated by the Sheriff's Office," even after I showed your office (in my e-mail [above]) how County Counsel can't investigate my case (due to conflicts), and how it's actually illegal for the Attorney General's office to investigate my case.

Maybe, your office wasn't aware of that, and now that you are, you might have a change of direction.

I mean, this investigation is literally this simple: Just start with that $60,000 dog park, and go from there. Everything unravels from that one thing: A $60,000 dog park... that, just a few months later, when low-balled numbers didn't benefit their project, was estimated by the same engineering firm at $690,000 -- a factor of 11.5 (factor, not percentage)... a 1,150-percent difference.

And that doesn't even include the other $2 million in park amenities that were just completely left out of the cost estimates altogether, which, amazingly, is even worse than that 1,150-percent difference.

Frankly, the deliberate low-balling in that document is so extreme, that I actually find it funny. It makes me laugh... out loud. That's how much they deliberately low-balled those numbers -- comically huge.

The only thing funnier, is that the Coastal Commission never once said something like, "Really? $60,000 for an entire, public dog park, that you're going to have to build from scratch? And what about that other $2 million worth of park amenities? Where's that in these 'no economic incentive to relocate' figures?"

As a construction friend of mine instantly said, when I recently told him about the $60,000 dog park, "You can't even build a public restroom for under $200,000 these days."

Which is also exactly why it is actually illegal for the AG's office to investigate this case. "By law" they have to "represent" the CCC, and this investigation will show that the AG's client -- the CCC -- didn't do their homework in 2004 (because they were lied to, egregiously, by a local government agency), and, because the CCC got lazy and trusted those lies, that led directly to a gigantic, and very expensive, environmental disaster in SLO County... that also ripped the community fabric of that town to tiny shreds, I will add to my report.

So, you know, I kinda need to know: Is the SLO County Sheriff's department, using the "fraudulent concealment" argument that "tolls" the statute of limitations (and that I've outlined in my e-mail [above]), going to investigate that "$60,000/$690,000 dog park/missing $2 million, and how that lie eventually led to a very expensive, 6-year-and-counting, environmental disaster in SLO County, that also ripped the community fabric of a town to tiny shreds" thing, or not?

That's my question.

Thanks again,
Ron

P.S. If I'm not mistaken, Warren Jensen is also the Sheriff's Office Counsel, as well. Is that correct? Thanks again!
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No response whatsoever.

So, yeah... The perfect crime: A multi-million dollar fraud against the People of California, that's illegal to prosecute.

And now, I have an excellent philosophical question here: If it's illegal for California's "chief law enforcement officer" to "assist (the citizens of California) regarding complaints against state agencies," because she is "required by law to represent those agencies," how is that not, like, you know, tyranny?

I mean, really? When it comes to the priority list for the "chief law enforcement officer for the state" on who she "represents," "by law" it's the Government of the State of California, first, and THEN the People of the State of California, second?

Really? "By law," the People are #2 on that list?

Again, how is that not tyranny?

By the way, Warren Jensen IS the Sheriff Department's counsel, as well as chief counsel for the SLO County Grand Jury... of course.

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