San Miguel official resigns, calls out colleagues

As an avid Oceano Board watcher for the past 6 years, Jim Hill was the last director on that board willing to cut spending and reign in rogue staff and questionable expenditures that were illegally being made by board members. Cell phones, health insurance, afternoon lunches at Old Juan’s on the district’s dime were the norm until Hill was able to shine the light on these and other violations of the law. Hill even asked board members to fore-go their stipends altogether, which they did, until he left.

Hill was uncomfortable, as anyone should be, with the GM’s accounting practices and unwillingness to pull together previous data to catch the district’s audits up. His fellow board members were unwilling to sever ties with that GM so Hill and Heson resigned. Only 6 weeks later CalCoastNews found that GM was stealing. A trend that continued with successor GM’s (incompetence is a form of theft, too).

It’s been the board since that has driven the district steadily toward bankruptcy. They were lucky to have a few Hail Mary’s to keep them afloat and bring their books into the 20th century. But, look at their audits and their dwindling funds. The Titanic set sail when Jim left, Mary Lucey is now at its helm and will steer it straight into the iceberg. The budget this year was adopted $281K in the red, Paavo just gave them a projection of how this years spending is going adding another $70K to the deficit.

Last year the water fund borrowed $770K from an internal fund.

The rate increase Jim implemented just as he left has been spent entirely on GM salaries and hiring accounting consultants. The infrastructure is rapidly failing. Wells are off for costly repairs, State Water has stopped flowing — the bills keep coming, Lopez is their most reliable source and the lake level is dropping and they’re maxing out the allocation. All the while the distribution system is LEAKING as much as 134AFY annually. That’s water the rate payers are paying for that never reaches a faucet to be used.

Hired in May 2014 under the magic math of combining two positions, GM & accountant, the star struck OCSD board hired Paavo Ogren. Director Karen White said it that night, “let him find his own money” as they grappled with his $1M four year contract. In February Oceano ratepayers will witness Paavo finding his own money as he implements an urgency rate increase under the guise of “drought.” He will be back in 2016 with a rate increase intended to back-fill deficits and finally make infrastructure repairs.

Ogren is paid $1000 a day, an amount few Oceano residents make in a week, while the pipes continue to leak.