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Morro Bay commissioner under fire

April 12, 2011

UPDATE: The Morro Bay City Council voted 4-1 to force Planning Commissioner John Diodati out if his absences continue on Tuesday.

The council’s vote to change the meetings from Mondays to Wednesdays created a conflict for Diodati who coaches his son’s little league team on Wednesdays.

Diodati said the children, who he has coached for two years, come first.

ORIGINAL: By JACK MCCURDY

John Diodati, who chaired the Morro Bay City Planning Commission when it unanimously voted against the city’s proposed wastewater treatment plant project in December, is being targeted for removal from the Commission by Carla Borchard, a member of the Morro Bay City Council, which is scheduled to vote on her proposed firing of Diodati tonight (Tuesday).

She is seeking to remove him for missing Commission meetings in order to meet his commitments to coach Little League, which were made prior to the Council changing the days of the Commission meetings from Mondays to Wednesday last February without consulting members of the Commission. She claims he violated city rules on attendance at meetings of city advisory bodies. But he says she is wrong.

Borchard’s move against Diodati comes in the wake of mayor Bill Yates’s effort last January to fire that entire, same Commission, which Diodati chaired. Yates’s move failed when opposition from other Council members at the Council meeting, including Borchard, showed he did not have enough votes to approve his motion to fire the Commission. He then withdrew the motion.

The California Coastal Commission rejected the city’s wastewater treatment project for many of the same reasons that the Planning Commission did.

In her resolution on the Council’s agenda Borchard states that the Commission’s bylaws say the “absence of four meetings in a consecutive 12-month period will constitute resignation of the absent member.” Therefore, the Council should either require Diodati to “meet the attendance requirement or declare the position vacant.”

However, Diodati says the Commission does not have bylaws but is governed by the city’s Municipal Code, which allows any member of the Commission to miss Commission meetings if that member obtains advance approval of fellow Commissioners, which he said he did on March 16. They approved his planned absences unanimously, he said.

City attorney Rob Schultz reportedly concurred that the Commission does not have bylaws, in which case, Diodati says, the Municipal Code governs absences of Commission members. Schultz apparently did not approve the resolution since the box on the resolution reserved for his initials is empty. It is not known whether he reviewed it.

Diodati said he requested permission from his fellow Commissioners to miss five meetings, although he said it would most likely be fewer, and his plan now is to miss four meetings.

The Council meeting starts at 6 tonight and can be viewed at http://www.slo-span.org/mbchannel20.php.


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Has anyone researched HR1440? It states: California law currently requires employers to provide “School Activities Leave.” Specifically, employers must provide parents, guardians, or custodial grandparents of a child or children in kindergarten through grade 12, or a child in a licensed child day-care facility, with up to 40 hours per year of unpaid leave to participate in school activities. The leave cannot exceed more than eight (8) hours in a calendar month. The employee must provide his or her supervisor/manager with reasonable notice of the required leave.


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It is the epitome of selfishness to co-opt an issue about someone who could lose their job over coaching Little League games, and turn it into a debate about Morro Bay vs. Los Osos sewer “activism,” and then insult people who somehow fall into the exception of, “Don’t attack the citizens who give their time in service to their communities.”


To market a certain issue or person, people in will often create multiple accounts and post on multiple sites to garner interest that benefits their personal agenda. Yates supporters have started doing this by accusing Betty Winholtz of placing fliers in mailboxes with no postmark, when the claim has no merit.


In Los Osos, we know the people who are creating the accounts. We know who is posting almost 24/7. These people are Alon Perlman and Lynette Tornatzky. One of them has made criminal threats to activists and drunkenly harasses people. The other represents Taxpayers Watch, a hate group that has sent their spokeswoman out to discredit anyone who has an opinion that differs than their own. She has stated on television that she wants to have a “champagne lunch” over a sewer that will displace thousands of homeowners.


These people are not to be trusted.


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Thanks Razor. Remember, Perlmann is the wacko who called into the Congalton show and tried to switch the subject and put down a real Los Osos activist — and Dave laughed at him and cut him off. He’s the joke of the coast in Los Osos. That’s why he was unanimously voted off LOCAC — he got three votes: his mommy, his sissy and cat, Petseleh. Babbling in his beer in pig English into any microphone he can cop makes him a recidivist, not an activist. He doesn’t have a job, attacks his neighbors for spite, and jumps from site to site like an infected flea making comments about comments about comments. Like Torsnotsky. She’s the Sarah Palin of Los Osos, a crazy, old housebound hag who heads the “Gibson’s Girls” unit of the Taxpayers Watch gang and whose hubby is a Cal Poly IT prof. Sad what happens to some unstable people when they drink the toilet water in Los Osos.


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I can appreciate what McCurdy, SLO Coast Journal, and CalCoastNews does because they outshine the angry voices with facts that keep our collective community informed.


The issue, right now, is about John Diodati being targeted by Councilwoman Borchard for his commitment to community service. True, Diodati’s professionalism as County Public Works administrator is questionable, he is nevertheless being subjected to political horseplay — and sadly, that horseplay has plagued the discussion here.


I feel obligated to discuss where Perlman and Tornatzky come from because their misconduct serves as the perfect simile to what Yates supporters have done to Winholtz and Diodati: they attack the messenger, and not the message. They have gone up, over, and beyond to attack the people for showing the facts, and it pains me to see that this viral rancor has tried to infect the message, and the masses. Those responsible for the chaos are only a few people who personify prejudice.


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I dunno….if he’s not going to attend the meetings, then how can he keep the position?


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Diodati has attended the Planning Commissions meetings, but he was late because of his prior commitment to coach Little League. The Council moved forward on Tuesday to consider lateness as an actual absence.


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Lessons not learned from the Los Osos Sewer Project.

While the role of the planning commission is to independently review a project, they are functionally also the last serious review and point of correction before the Project goes to outside State and even federal agencies. Therefore the PC’s actions and recommendations were consistent with the CCC, was based on knowledge about the CCC’s objections and anticipatory. And the MBPC and it’s Chair did their (Uncompensated) Job. The proof is that the CCC now “owns” the project and has sent it back.

And snowy plover is correct- The project that the Commission rejected IS a MWH project! This proves Deodati is on the level, but that the outsider agit-props, will lie about the chips they have placed on their own shoulders.


Lessons not learned from the Los Osos Sewer Activism.

MB activisem used to hold it’s own. You still have Noah Smeckler and Betty Winholtz active. Ocean Outfall group used to matter and come out with their own research. Los Osos Sewer Activism became a tired institution long ago. Many of it’s failures have to do with taking information from people with varying agenda’s. For example- People involved who don’t own a septic tank (Yet Al claimed it was “Unfair” that he “had to pump it”) people who live outside the prohibition zone, and even two “Los Ossans” posting here who don’t even live in the County!!!


Creating divisions for the sake of divisions. MB will be lucky if Deodati is retained. Don’t attack the citizens who give their time in service to their communities.


Let Morro Bay learn from their own mistakes, rather than repeat the mistakes of Los Osos.


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Don’t attack the citizens who give their time in service to their communities.


Then why do you attack citizens who give their time in service to their community? Aren’t you a renter in Los Osos with no stake? You aren’t an activist, you don’t have a job, and you drink too much. But you do have free speech. Sad to think our sons and daughters died to protect your right to babble.


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Just as they did yours, Mr. Pseudonym. Pulled that name back out of the mothballs did you?


Exposing the truth is often seen as an attack by the unbalanced and those who are wrong but don’t want to admit it.


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Thanks Mythbuster but as you know I don’t need to defend my record of public service in Los Osos. Nor address the lack of any truth in the other metronomic ticking lies. With the entry of the third Greater Los Angeles Area resident, into this little fracas, we now have three people who don’t live in the county defending 15 minutes of ego against Years of actual work. Morro Bay activists may want to vet their LO sources, the tragedy of Los Osos is that several Los Osos Activists popped half baked from the cookie cutter without vetting theirs. It’s happening this day, with elderly folk being pressured to support more lawsuits by the same people whose previous lawsuits went nowhere. So what has this to do with Deodati? Figure out who posted his home phone number on two websites and you will understand why he is being attacked here by the Los Angelino’s. M.B. you know who I am- There is no holywood hackery in what I testified before the EPA on the outfall weiver science. Which is what started the whole MorroBay Sewer mess.


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mbactivist1, I was NEVER in support of bringing in Delzeit, he’s another one of the corrupt SLO County’s over paid darlings. Wallace needs to go & in my opinion, Diodotti needs to set his “priorities”…He was hired to do a job, it’s part of “the job” to attend the meetings….on time. Diodotti get over it & get moving!


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