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“Just the tip” of a Poseidon missile, circa 1974.
So, cut to the chase you say – what happened Wednesday night at the OCWD meeting on entering into contract negotiations with Poseidon? Fair enough, I’ll tell you right up front. All ten directors EXCEPT JAN FLORY went ahead and voted to:
- “Direct staff to begin negotiating a term sheet with Poseidon Resources to purchase the 56,000 acre-feet per year of water created by the Huntington Beach Ocean Desalination project,” and
- “Report back to the Board no later than the March 18, 2015 Board meeting on the progress of the negotiations.”
Most of the directors casting yea votes accompanied that vote with a lengthy self-exculpatory ramble on how they really did have concerns about this aspect and that aspect, but not to worry, nothing was set in stone yet, this was just moving forward VERY CAREFULLY, and they would have to negotiate to see what exactly they would end up with. (Shades of Pelosi’s unfortunate “have to pass the bill to see what’s in it.”)
I’d already seen that exact thing so many times by 2013, in my watching county government agencies trying to gradually sneak in unpopular programs, that I wrote a story about the phenomenon called “The Camel’s Nose in the Tent.” My good-government pal Dave Zenger, who worked for the county till being fired for excessive honesty, told me, “It’s called INCREMENTALIZATION, Vern, a sort of inertial force in corporate activity, and a gathering of momentum in which the implausible eventually becomes the inevitable.”
Well, the camel’s nose metaphor is getting kind of stale, so today I’m going to go with teen sex lore – the guy who tells the girl, “Don’t worry, I’ll just stick the TIP in. It won’t hurt, and you won’t get pregnant.” Last night, the OCWD told us exactly that story about Poseidon, just as the OCTA has told us that about the Disney Streetcar, just as the Anaheim kleptos told their people that about their Angels Stadium giveaway MOU to Arte Moreno.
And it’s alarming, when you consider the size of EVEN JUST THE TIP of a Poseidon missile (above and right.) 
This metaphor is apt partly because of the obsolete 70’s-era technology this company insists on sticking us with, and also because of the way it will affect us all once it gets in PAST the tip – the BILLION DOLLAR COST, the bonds taken out on OUR triple-A credit, the $180 million down payment coming from US, the 30-year commitment to buy the expensive water when we need it and when we don’t, and the resulting huge cost increase in our water bills – possibly up to 4 times what we’re paying now, but at least twice as much (it’s impossible to say exactly.)
Brothers and sisters, WE ARE GOING TO FEEL THAT.
********
Some Interesting Things Some Directors Said.
Denis Bilodeau, responding to the numerous critics who asked “Why pick Poseidon over some more qualified or honest firm?” pointed out “Poseidon has something no other firm has – twelve successful permits for this project. If we suddenly dumped them and went with someone else, well… we’d be just sitting here again in fifteen years doing the same thing, without a desal plant.”
And this would be a problem how? If it had been a dialogue I would have responded that all the experts say we’re okay for at least another 35 years. Harry Sidhu chimed in that with a delay like 10 or 15 years we’d be talking much higher construction costs, which may be true, but a LOT of unpredictable things will be very different by then – we’re also bound to have much better technology, quite possibly less expensive to create and use.
Doing Yoh-man service!
Roger Yoh surprised us and got the only smattering of non-Flory applause when he said he didn’t like the idea of OCWD taking on all the risk in the deal, and would insist that Poseidon took at least some of it. But will Roger stick to that position when push comes to shove, and will enough of his colleagues join him? Many of them said they didn’t like the idea of their constituents paying unnecessarily higher water rates … and yet, they just keep following this Pied Piper.
Jan Flory took her famous “What do we need Poseidon for?” question to the next level, suggesting (after some head-fake flattery of the “charming and handsome Scott Maloni”) that if the OCWD could build its own celebrated Groundwater Reclamation System it could also build its own Desalination Plant. Hell yeah, sure, why not – the Board seems all ready to take out a billion dollar loan as it is – why NOT do it ourselves and take out the need for profit? But of course, only once we determine that we really need that and need it now.
Naturally Flory’s sensible but iconoclastic talk got no support on the dais.
The Miracle of the Public Comments.
The place would have been standing room only with overflow HAD ONLY POSEIDON OPPONENTS SHOWED UP, there were that many of us. As it was, it was even worse, with DOZENS OF POSEIDON SHILLS (who usually don’t bother coming) there to show their fealty and reap their rewards, pushing some of us out into the corridor where we could neither hear nor see. I’m talking:
- Politicians bought and paid for by Poseidon. Potato-like Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff.* Slick Assemblyman Travis Allen. Reptilian Westminster councilman Tyler Diep. Two of HB’s own brand-new “Chamber Three” – Barbara “Pave it” Delgleize, and Four-flushin’ Billy O’Connell. Doubtless more that I didn’t notice or can’t quickly make up nicknames for.
- Leaders and reps of all the unions who hope to get work from the boondoggle, temporary as it will be: all the Building Trades. Teamster leaders Patrick Kelly and Ernesto Medrano, both of whom seem to pop up any time a project materializes that is terrible for the public but offers some slim hope of a few union jobs.
- Also ubiquitous whenever a “public-private partnership” scam is in the works to bleed us taxpayers: the OC Business Council, OC TAX, and the HB Chamber of Commerce.
- Representatives of several businesses who seem likely to profit as Poseidon vendors or contractors.
- And my favorite, the three sullen young college students (interns?) apparently recruited either by Brett Barbre or consultant Brian Lochrie, who show up every time and mumble off some script about how important desalination is “to our generation and future generations” and how they “enthusiastically support this project,” and then slump off to hover near the Poseidon crowd till they’re allowed to go home.
But none of that is the Miracle yet. The Miracle happened after new Board chairwoman Cathy Green finished reading off a little stack of letters of support from groups and folks who couldn’t be there (including Matt Harper) and called up the public commenters. The Miracle was that, even though several opponents had gotten there and turned in their cards before any boosters, and the cards should have been pretty shuffled up between pro and con, the FIRST TWENTY-FOUR SPEAKERS WERE ALL IN FAVOR, each giving similar short bland rah-rah talks about how we need the water and we need the jobs. And the rest of us – the vast majority – had to wait an hour to have our say. And the Board swore it was pure accident!
It reminded me of the first scene of the great tragicomedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (which you MUST see if you haven’t) where the Gary Oldman character flips a coin over a hundred times and it always comes up heads, while the Tim Roth character looks on first in irritation, then bafflement, then terror.
When we Poseidon critics finally got to speak, we were outraged, and wasted much of our precious three minutes complaining about this Miracle, which Chairman Green swore that she could not explain (although a friend did notice her shuffling through the speaker cards early on.) This is really not a petty complaint, as several Poseidon opponents who’d come out at 5:30 to speak had to get back home before being called up a few hours later – including the celebrated water guru Connor Everts, who had driven all the way from Santa Monica to help fight the monstrosity.
Director Vince Sarmiento, a smooth-talking Santa Ana lawyer and councilman, apologized but also made the reasonable point, “When I’m making an argument, I generally PREFER to go last.” True that, but still, when my turn came I bitched, “I guess those politicians’ and other boosters’ time is just more valuable than ours, so now they’ve all gone home to watch Criminal Minds.” (It WAS Wednesday night.)
And good old Bobbi Ashurst shouted out from the back: “They coulda just stayed HERE and watched it.”
There were a LOT of great opposition speakers, but I only want to mention two here: I was happy to see attorney and conservative council candidate Sean Paden (left) who had come all the way down from Fullerton, partly at the behest of Republican councilman Bruce Whitaker, to thank Jan Flory (D) for sticking up for taxpayers, and to lecture the rest of the board on the evils of crony capitalism. Good bipartisan stuff.
And my new friend Bruce Wareh made a point that some of us had thought but none had articulated: Everyone has been asking for this to be delayed a few years so that we can see how Poseidon’s Carlsbad project turns out, but Bruce turned that around, suggesting that the reason OUR project is being rushed through is to get it done BEFORE Carlsbad inevitably fails. (And we ARE getting bad news from Carlsbad already, which I’ll put in another story.)
Steve Sheldon’s Pet Peeves
Director Steven Sheldon (who was no plumper than usual but more florid than ever – seriously, check your blood pressure brother!) has many pet peeves. And most of them have to do with us public speakers. And even though he was ostentatiously scrolling through his smart phone during much of our speaking, he still noticed quite a bit of our misbehavior. We are rude. We need to follow rules. Not talk a second past our three minutes. If we don’t get our card in on time, don’t demand to speak! (That’s a brand new rule one of their old rules they just decided to enforce, by the way.)
He informed us that, at a San Diego County Supervisors meeting, if you go over your 3-minute limit, an ARMED San Diego Sheriff will brusquely escort you out! And he sounded like he wished we had a little of that discipline here!
And most eccentrically – I think this speaks more to Sheldon’s peculiar psychology than anything else – we need to decide WHAT SORT OF POSEIDON CRITIC EACH OF US REALLY IS, and STICK with that! Are you an environmental critic? If so, then it’s disingenuous of you to bring up fiscal concerns. Do you live in Southeast HB and don’t want the plant in your neighborhood? Well, that’s understandable but you’re not thinking of the greater good. And if you are really a fiscal critic, then don’t muck up your argument with environmental concerns. There are three different kinds of critics, don’t you see, and if you try to be more than one you are only “throwing things at the wall to see what will stick.”
In Sheldon’s sclerotic mind, an environmentalist can’t care about or understand economics; and a fiscal conservative probably doesn’t really care about the ocean getting fucked up. Sheldon has three boxes for us, and we each have to decide which one we belong in and STAY THERE so he can slam a lid shut on it. What a guy…
And seriously, check that blood pressure dude.
NEXT: WHAT CAN STILL BE DONE?
* Correction – I heard Bob Huff’s name announced when I was out in the corridor; turns out he only sent a rep.
The shabby treatment at the hands of this Board was made only slightly tolerable by the fantastic turn-out supporting a closer look at 1) Alternatives to desal and 2) waiting to see how the Billion Dolllar Boondoggle turn out in Carlsbad.
The Board’s insensitive comments regarding the establishment of a CAC showed such disregard for the people they are ELECTED to makes one wonder if they don’t need a primer in public relations. They have flown under the radar for long they forget they work for US. We may relegate, we do NOT abdicate our responsibilities to these Boards.
The Boards seem to think that the working public are not capable of reading, writing & deciphering technical documents, which is presumptuous beyond words. That might be true somewhere else but not here & on this particular project. It isn’t rocket science. The Board forgets that EACH ONE of them WAS one of us before an election. If THEY can do it, WE can do it. And they’d better get used to it, because some of us aren’t going anywhere but right down their backs.
How much of it got videotaped?
I think that that Card Shufflin’ Miracle may turn out to be a serious problem for them. Perhaps it was a courtesy to those who were being paid to attend, to lower the cost to their clients, but it still had the effect of stacking the debate (both because people leave and because people stop paying attention) and that’s not acceptable.
Nice to have a crusade, eh, Chairman? Gus would be proud of you today.
Which reminds me: WHERE WAS THE DPOC IN ALL OF THIS? Absent?
Where is the DPOC in all of this?
Perhaps hunkered down wondering how the could let Solorio AND Correa get trounced like schoolgirls in the supposed “hole in the donut”.
Oh am I getting ahead of myself???
“Trounced like schoolgirls”? What is going on inside your head?
Maybe I should have said “lil bitches”. But as long as offense is not taken I will.
Except for this blog. NO ONE else on earth YES PLANET EARTH, is harping on about this, whispering about this, even knows what this is…..
Thanks for trying but golly, nobody here is really in a position to do anything. Although it sounds as though David Zenger and Cynthia Ward are very important people. But, what can be done?
The DPOC obviously favors this project. It has the explicit support of Demacrats and Republicans alike.
where do progressive leaders like Sanchez,Quirk,Pulido and Bao stand on this?????
The DPOC has opposed it in the past. Individual Democrats who have received money from Poseidon have supported it, but the public officials who have supported it most effectively — Joe Shaw and Connie Boardman in particular — have been Democrats. At one point, not so long ago, the party had a good institutional position on these issues. Among Republicans, it’s the usual: some have good positions and they are rarely in control of the party apparatus.
Did you just call Pulido a “progressive leader”?
Well done Vern. What can be done? We’ve got to strategize mahn. For the sake of all of us & for Gus. This is infuriating but someone assured me last night at DFA that the Coastal Commission would not let this happen & will not approve the necessary permits. They have already learned that ‘Poseidon dramatically underestimated the number of fish killed by their intake pipes at Carlsbad plant.’ I couldn’t find anything written about it since November 2013 UNTIL this: http://www.coastal.ca.gov/pdf/ISTAP_Final_Phase1_Report_10-9-14.pdf
Does this mean the first phase permits have been approved? Where is Poseidon getting the money to fight for this project all these years? From all I’ve read it looks like the project proposal was first proffered in 2002 or so? I suppose, with the huge ripoff of HB citizens, it won’t take them long to recoup their losses.
I hate how Rep. Pelosi’s “pass the bill to see what’s in it” line is often taken out of context. She was referring to the benefits of ACA becoming tangible once they became real (once ACA became law). Lo & behold, Nancy Pelosi is now being proven correct as we’re seeing health care reform take hold.
I guess we can say the same about Poseidon HB… Except that we can already see what shiny new desal plants did for Santa Barbara, Yuma, the Persian Gulf states, Australia, and Tampa. And once folks in San Diego County start screaming because their water bills are skyrocketing, we’ll know “The Poseidon Effect” is kicking in.
Poseidon 4 Green was shuffling the cards right in front of all of us. You will note that the IRWD who is against the project was shifted to the second tier. One hour late arriving water district rep, spoke within 4 minutes from sitting down. Sat right in front of me.
We all knew that Poseidon 4 Green was manipulating the speakers while at the same time protecting the vested interests. The pro Poseidon vested interests were just puppets stating that we need Poseidon to build a desal plant in HB, but offered no facts only handouts from Poseidon in order to justify their position. The arrogance of the OCWD leadership was shameful and represents their ignorance.
Director Jan Flory was right “‘ why do we need Poseidon.” . The GWRS was built without any Poseidon 3rd party. Why the rush to judgement by the paid OCWD honks through campaign contributions to push this plant down the throats of of the rate paying taxpayers. .
I have no official role here, lacking a client and all, but given general good practices it would probably be useful for people who attended the meeting to commit their eyewitness accounts to writing and email them to themselves (for the time stamp) while their memories are fresh, to facilitate eventual sworn declarations.
The OCWD is sitting on a billion dollar pile o’ cash. Why finance?
I did not know that.
Spoken like someone who does not thirst, more deeply and ravenously than words can adequately express, for the sweet sweet nectar of investing in tax-free AAA-rated municipal bonds.
Fiscal corruption of the legal kind is being cultivated and harvested by the big bong salesmen and underwriters – selling agencies on debt for stuff it doesn’t need. Just like a half billion dollar bond for NOCCCD.
We certainly agree on the fundamental dynamic at the core of the problem. We may disagree, though, about the following.
Each municipal bond sale has to rise or fall based on an evaluation of its own merits. One big difference I see between Poseidon and Measure J is the amount of warning and agitation coming from activists prior to the moment at which a fateful decision is to be made. Many of us have been all over the Poseidon issue; measure J, by contrast, did not excite much interest before the election. Perhaps that suggests that while there is a danger of corruption there, as with any bond sale, The school bond measure plausibly meets real needs and is not obviously complete lunacy.
But I, as is no doubt true of you, am willing to keep my eye on this particular ball without delving into other potential issues – sound good? I’ll have another update on Measure J posted probably next week.
Thank heaven for Jan Flory (and for the county’s greatest pianist) but what happened to Cathy Green? I thought she was an environmentalist and member of Amigos de las Bolsa Chica? Oh HB, its hard to keep the players straight.
People with longer memories of HB tell me that, indeed, she did start out as something of an environmentalist. Like, 15 or 20 years ago?
As long as I’ve been paying attention to HB politics though, she’s never gone against big money interests, and smooth talkers who make her feel important and smart.
(See “The Gail Eastman Syndrome” section of this story: http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2015/01/surfin-sheldon-little-lost-dina-righteous-flory-what-youve-been-missing-at-ocwd-showdown-tonight/ )
Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute!
“If we don’t get our card in on time, don’t demand to speak! (That’s a brand new rule by the way.)”
Seriously? They said that on the record? Was someone prevented from speaking because they had not turned in a card?
Under the Brown Act, a member of the public can attend a meeting of a legislative body without having to register or give other information as a condition of attendance. (§ 54953.3; see also 27 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 123 (1956).) If a register, questionnaire or similar document is posted or circulated at a meeting, it must clearly state that completion of the document is voluntary and not a precondition
for attendance. (§ 54953.3.) A legislative body may not prohibit any person attending an open meeting from video recording, audio recording or broadcasting the proceedings, absent a reasonable finding that such activity would constitute a disruption of the proceedings. (§§ 54953.5, 54953.6; Nevens v. City of Chino (1965) 233 Cal.App.2d 775, 779; see also § 6091.)
Under the Act, the public is guaranteed the right to provide testimony at any regular or special meeting on any subject which will be considered by the legislative body before or during its consideration of the item. (§ 54954.3(a).) In 80 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 247, 248-252 (1997), this office concluded under a similar provision in the Bagley-Keene Act that the public’s right to comment on all agenda items applied to quasi-judicial proceedings as well as quasi-legislative proceedings. In addition, the public has the right at every regular meeting to provide testimony on any matter under the legislative body’s jurisdiction. (§ 54954.3(a).) However, this office concluded that a body could prohibit a member of the public from speaking on a matter that was outside the jurisdiction of the body. (78 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 224, 230 (1995).)
The Act specifically authorizes the legislative body to adopt regulations to assist in processing comments from the public. The body may establish general procedures for public comment as well as specifying reasonable time limitations on particular topics or individual speakers. So long as the body acts fairly with respect to the interest of the public and competing factions, it has great discretion in regulating the time and manner, as distinguished from the content, of testimony by interested members of the public. (§ 54954.3(b).)
I was thinking the same thing. No card necessary. What happened was an act of willful disregard of, and disdain for the public. The arrogance is breathtaking, but not even unusual for a collection of white collar brigands who make up their own rules as they go along.
Way to give away the ending, Cynthia!
OK guys here’s how it went down. (First of all I just found out it’s not “a new rule of theirs” but an old one that they just now decided to start enforcing. The rule being you need to fill out and turn in a card in order to speak, and once public comments begin you can no longer turn in a card.)
My pal Bruce Wareh, and a young lady as well, both decided they wanted to speak after the public comments had already started, and they weren’t allowed to turn in cards. After (what the Board intended to be) the last speaker, Bruce spoke up, and said “There are a couple more of us who would like to address the Board, we didn’t get our cards in in time.” And Chairwoman Cathy said something on the lines of “I’m sorry, these are the rules.”
And from the back we started chanting “Let them speak! Let them speak!” Steve Sheldon, more and more the board’s Alpha Dog now that Dewane is not chairman, turned a new shade of crimson and made a violent gesture swinging the mike to himself … and then stopped himself from whatever he was about to say, and instead muttered, “Fine. Let them speak.” So Bruce and the young lady spoke, very well.
(Then some half-crazy fella decided he wanted to speak too, someone who wanted to go on and on complimenting everyone, complimenting Poseidon, complimenting the opponents, complimenting the Board, fantasizing about how we could all get along… and he wouldn’t stop after his three minutes, no matter how many times Cathy said “Thank you.” In fact the third time he sarcastically said “You’re welcome” and kept going. Then Sheldon gave this fellow a righteous chewing-out for his rudeness, and for once it was hard to disagree with Sheldon!)
So, their little rule is against the Brown Act eh? Not surprising. They have one of those “lawyers” who tells em anything they want to do is copacetic. “Knock yourselves out!”
Since you don’t have to turn in a card at all, a fortiori, you can’t be limited to when you have to turn it in.
All this is bullshit. The chairwoman’s decision to filter out pro Poseidon speakers for first commenting shows bias, too, which is not illegal but shows the quality of her intelligence and her character.
Here is an excellent article about the desal plant being built in Carlsbad: http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations-largest-ocean-desalination-plant-goes-up-near
Included in the article is a history of California desal plants that were constructed and abandoned when water became plentiful again. It appears that Poseidon may have sold San Diego County a beautiful expensive bridge to nowhere.
The article also points out the amount of energy necessary to operate the plant: 38 megawatts per day the equivalent power used by 28,500 average homes. That’s more than either Fountain Valley or Westminster, would Poseidon be included in loosing power during the next rolling brown outs?
Desal is a wonderful technology, but tap water should be cheaper than bottled water.
for the record, the great bulk of bottled water IS tap water
Good reporting. Thanks.
The F word added nothing.
Sorry sir, but to my generation it is like a peppercorn.
*Good edgy argument Chairman Vern……but the permit business is daunting and the Carlsbad plant will probably reduce cost by 20%, if they build two within a five year
time table:
http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article3017597.html
*If 56,000 acre foot are 7% of what San Diego needs….in any even it insures a 7% growth for developers in SD over the next 10 years. The ability to increase production is well worth the $1 Billion dollar price tag. Ask Tony Moisio or Bill Lyon…..having enough water and electricity is pre-eminent to insure greater development projects for So. Cal.
*So why should the rest of us pay to make Tony Moiso richer?…just askin’…Wow!
*Trickle down….Davey boy….Trickle Down! Just ask Jamie Dimond…..he will tell you how economics work.
*I already know how OCs development economy works…but thanks all the same..Wow! Lordy!
The economic advantages of desal seem to be based on a huge array of assumptions. In 1959 I was told that the definition of assume was: “Make an ASS out of you and ME”!
*Jack, break-throughs are always speculative. Until they become realities that is. The Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate, the California Freeway System, early California Public Education….when we had free colleges….remember those? The Owens Valley Water Project…….yes Virginia…lots of graft, pay-offs and double billings in all of it. Lot’s of wrong doing in the name of Public benefit. When it all comes down to it…..we will be doing Desal and HSR for one reason……the future generations of Californians. If you don’t want to pay….great….move to Colorado, Oregon, Arizona or Texas. They love you guys!
They are not “speculating,” Ron. They are guaranteed enormous profits under the contemplated contracts. Where is the supposed risk to investors?
Dr. D., you keep pushing the “proposed contract” issue. This is exactly why we always supported a vote of the people, so that arguments on both sides could be outed, discussed, arbitrated, changed, altered or finally determined. Just one major question: What is the prime difference between the Carlsbad Agreement and the proposed HB Agreement? Time, rate, amount of water generated, life of the contract? What?
You could, you know, read them yourself . . .
*That could lead to knowledge and knowledge could result in responsibility and even complicity. There is a certain dignity about ignorance…and irrelevant, opaque references…Wow…!
*Guess you guys don’t know……that’s refreshing!
You know that no “vote of the people” is scheduled, right? So I presume that you should be up in arms about that, and opposed to the proposal in its present form.
*This is very reason why the OCWD is taking up the issue. Making their side deals, twisting some arms, getting some backdoor cash and just being the consumate downright public service agency that it is.
Ummm… and you’re good with that?
This is exactly what this blog exists to fight against. Get with the program!
Vern, my advice is to quit prospecting for even a nugget of coherent thought. There isn’t any. Not one. It’s all a complete, jumbled nonsense. It’s not even funny anymore.
*We understand that you never read the papers…..we are down with that. You guys love the virtual reality of cyber space….we get that. However, San Onofre, Dominogoni, the 91 Fwy, the Orange County Fair and certain cities in Orange County do insist inspite of your protestations. Why you are not fighting the stupidity of the Toll Road System that doesn’t take Phone Apps to pay tolls is truly ridiculous, but we understand that you are fighting those bigger battles, protesting and protecting our society from alternative water supplies.
No. We stopped the Fairgrounds Swindle. And we closed down San Onofre. Now be quiet if you’re not going to help.
You have the keys here, sir (or “sir and madam” if Anna does ever post here); write about it yourself!
^^^ They make pills for this.
Just sayin.
Yeah, the (Freudian slip?) example of the Bay Bridge is a PERFECT example of why the paper it’s printed on is worth more than the optimistic ignorance and deceit that gives these ‘essential public projects’ birth.
per-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_span_replacement_of_the_San_Francisco%E2%80%93Oakland_Bay_Bridge
Original estimate $780 Million (SPECULATION) was actually bid at $1.4 Billion and wound up at $6.4 Billion and 10 years BEYOND the 7 year initial estimate.(REALITY) ( Reminds me of a certain RailRoad project – Anybody notice a PATTERN ?) Oh, but I KNOW, it’s DIFFERENT this time!
While some might see mere arrogance, I think the self-centric view of you apologists for incompetence and corruption is SO endearingly quaint! “It’s for the CHILDREN”, right, so no questions allowed, just don’t interfere with the ‘experts’! After all, they wear SUITS, and have actual NAMEPLATES! Apparently there is NO RIGHT to HONEST efficient government projects in CA,? And if WE have the audacity to THINK SO, WE should just move out of YOUR state? Sorry to spoil your DELUSION, but I have decades of tax receipts that say otherwise.
Why don’t YOU ALL take YOUR stupid, crooked HEROES and bugger OUT of CA? The air quality alone might immediately improve enough to allow a few more cars on the road! I hear there’s potloads of American Tax $ rolling around in Afghanistan! THAT ought to be the ‘New Frontier” for Y’all, with a flavor of politics in THEIR projects you should all be already comfortable in dealing with, or at least in self-deluding about and apologizing for. Happy Trails!
I think you missed my point, the desal output may not be in addition to the current water supply but a partial replacement for the water no longer available from Lake Mead or Northern California. The energy necessary to run the Carlsbad desal greater than the energy used by all the homes in either Fountain Valley or Westminster, what with the decommissioning of some of the existing power plants in Southern California that’s energy that won’t be available to expanding developments. The assumptions that water availability and energy production will return to earlier levels is what I was referring to, desal may in fact become essential just to keep the taps flowing not as a source for growth and development.
vern, can we force this decision to a vote? Perhaps through a petition?
Any vote can be challenged through a referendum, but collecting the signatures to put the issue on the ballot isn’t exactly cheap.
*The vote of the OCWD was NINE to ONE……to “talk to Poseidon” regarding any meaningful negotiations on rates and amounts offered. While everyone is stomping on the ants….perhaps we should all just wait till the Elephants are considered in the room.