Design-Build-Collapse

By ED OCHS

The USDA loan may signal the demise of the design-build process, once a cornerstone of the County’s lapsed campaign to deliver affordability, competitive bidding and a co-equal cost analysis—including economical alternatives—to the Los Osos sewer project.

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Centurion Gibson Calls for ‘Ramming Speed!’ to Accelerate Los Osos Sewer

By ED OCHS

Second District Supervisor Bruce Gibson is in a big hurry, at least when it comes to the Los Osos Wastewater Project. He would do anything to speed up the project, anything. If he could push the start of construction up six months from March 2012 to September 2011 by ramming it by his pliable County Board of Supervisor brethren, then he will ram them head-on by lawyering, squeezing, smothering, hustling, and palavering them until they roll over, which they all eventually do. Gibson, like the Roman Centurion commanding the war galley rowed by slave Ben-Hur, has called for “Ramming speed!” on the Los Osos sewer. Public Works staff has been asked to return to the board in September with an accelerated plan.

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'Torn Fabric'

During ex parte comments by commissioners at the June 11 Coastal Commission hearing in Marina del Rey -- which resulted in a Coastal Development Permit unanimously granted to the Los Osos Wastewater Project -- Commissioner Mary Shallenberger disclosed that the day before the hearing she had met with San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Gibson, County Counsels Jensen and McNulty, and County Public Works Director Ogren.

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Tom Murphy Busted in Arizona

Apparently, Tom Murphy, self-described inventor of the quirky “Reclamator” home water-reuse device, has been busy inventing new professions for himself. At least one particular profession might force him to hire an attorney -- a real one -- to keep him out of mounting legal troubles. The sometimes volatile Murphy was arrested Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. at his residence in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, for impersonating a public servant, according to Lake Havasu City Police Department Sgt. Joe Harrold.

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Ogren’s MWH Gravity Bias Costing Los Osos Tens of Millions

UPDATE: Orenco's Mike Saunders replies to the Coastal Commission. On Thursday, June 10, Mike Saunders of Orenco challenged the California Coastal Commission staff's last-minute addendum, which echoed the County's preference for a conventional gravity system and its concerns regarding the STEP collection system. "While we have an obvious interest in this project we have a greater interest in protecting the integrity of our core business," wrote Saunders in a detailed e-mail to the commissioners and staff on the eve of the Commission's de novo hearing in Marina del Rey. "While we understand that this is not your direct concern, we do believe that correcting poor information is part of your responsibility in properly administering the California Coastal Act."

Why was the cheaper, environmentally-preferred STEP collection system suddenly dropped from the County’s design-build process for the Los Osos Wastewater Project last year? Why didn’t the only STEP design-build team in the mix appeal that decision? In a fascinating glimpse into Public Works’ dirty little secret war against STEP to promote MWH gravity collection, San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Frank Mecham, occasionally the lone dissenter on the Board of Supervisors when it comes to voting more money for County Public Works to spend on the Los Osos project, has served as middle man in recent behind-the-scenes correspondence from Orenco Systems’ Bill Cagle and County Public Works Director Paavo Ogren. Their comments from this still-smoldering debate reveal some of the back story on Ogren’s STEP vendetta, his vicious disregard for the truth, and the brutal price Los Osos “Prohibition Zone” homeowners and the people of Los Osos will have to pay for it.

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Gibson Under-Estimating Sewer Bills to Win Los Osos Votes

If it’s Tuesday and you happen to be visiting Los Osos from out of the area, perhaps thinking about moving there, and want to know more about the future of this nature-lover’s seaside paradise, you may want to sit in on a rare Los Osos Update or weekly public comment at a San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors meeting in charming downtown San Luis Obispo. There you can hear Los Osos residents ask question after question about the County’s proposed $165 million – now $180 million – Los Osos Wastewater Project. And, if you hang around long enough, you can catch Los Osos’ County representative to the board, Supervisor Bruce Gibson, administer frontier justice by turning his blowtorch on Los Osos speakers complaining about having to pay $250 a month to flush their toilets with the most expensive sewer project a disadvantaged community’s dwindling dollars can buy in a desperate economy. You’ll find what’s in store for Los Osos and more at weekly County Board of Supervisors meetings, but it comes with a stern warning: they aren’t for the thin-skinned, faint of heart or short of breath.

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State Funding Agencies Freeze Payments to MWH in New Orleans

Despite a contentious rebuttal from the Nagin administration to the city Inspector General’s “scathing” report on construction giant MWH America’s business practices in New Orleans, the state agency administrating the SRF loan and the state agency doling out FEMA reimbursements to local governments have halted MWH-related payments and begun tightening future loan disbursement rules and billing requirements.

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