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Sanitation district calls special meeting for Wallace review

February 11, 2013
John Wallace

John Wallace

Amid a $1.1 million fine levied against the South San Luis Obispo County Sanitation District due to mismanagement by the Wallace Group, the district board has set a special meeting for Monday to reevaluate its relationship with the district’s chief administrator John Wallace.

Wallace is also the owner and president of the Wallace Group, a private engineering consulting firm located in San Luis Obispo, which the district pays between $50,000 and $80,000 a month for engineering, consulting and administrative work.

The district is facing additional fines for three releases of improperly treated sewage into the Pacific Ocean during the second half of 2012, with each release larger than its predecessor.

In November, Matt Guerrero asked his fellow Oceano board members for advice on how he should vote on an upcoming sanitation district board review of Wallace’s administration of the district and the Wallace Group’s contract. In the end, it was determined by the Oceano board that a bottom up review of Wallace should be asked for before a vote is made of whether to terminate both or one of Wallace’s contracts with the sanitation district.

At that time, the sanitation district, which serves the residents of the Oceano Community Service District, Arroyo Grande and Grover Beach, was governed by a three person board consisting of Arroyo Grande Mayor Tony Ferrara, Grover Beach Councilman Bill Nichols and Guerrero. Guerrero was the lone voice requesting a review of Wallace and the Wallace Group.

In January, Grover Beach’s new mayor Debbie Peterson replaced Nichols on the sanitation district board, a change that will likely result in the Wallace Group’s termination as the district engineering contractor and Wallace’s termination as district administrator.

 


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Taking into consideration the current status of the District, Id be willing to bet Wallace gets a slap on the hand, a kiss from Tony and its back to work making a cool $50K++ give or take to run the plant into the ground. If they let Wallace go who would “administer” things at the plant? The CPO/ Only qualified lab tech resigned, the current shift supervisor hasn’t the knowledge to turn on a computer let alone comply with CWIQS reporting,budgets, etc,etc and anybody in their right mind looking to fill the now advertised CPO position probably already is savvy to the shenanigans going with the worst yet to come. If not surely they would simply Google the San Dist and see endless pages of news articles rife with problems.Therefore its only natural that Wallace’s Heather Billings and Mr. Callahan fill in as compliance keepers. I’ll also bet you’ll see Wallace’s charges escalate thru the roof in the months to come because of this self inflicted hole in staffing.

“Dump the Chump”… LOL…..it really should be “Dump the Chumps” though as we need say goodbye to Wallace’s sidekick Mike Seitz to remove all worthlessness from District payroll.


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We have to start somewhere. Getting rid of John Wallace is a must. We can get rid of Ferrara next.


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Believe you me, I do not disagree with you. So does anyone have any updates regarding the meeting? …..Oh Karen…where are you ;)


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I specially like the last sentence of the article. Now is the time to dump the chump!


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Come on, we need to kick Wallace out. His pattern of corruption has gone on too long.


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You won’t kick Wallace out. Big Tony runs A.G. and that’s a fact.


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Now the voters of AG need to get a new mayor


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YAY!!!!! Good work citizens!


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Sadly, the Sanitation District is a day late, and $1.1 million short. they should pay the fine and sue the Wallace Group for damages, including the cost of the fine.


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