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Phone records debunk public officials

August 11, 2011

Paavo Ogren

By KAREN VELIE

San Luis Obispo County phone records obtained by CalCoastNews prove a personal relationship between a county official and a Los Osos board member began more than four years ago.

County Public Works Director Paavo Ogren and former Los Osos Community Services District Board member Maria Kelly are being investigated by the county for a possible conflict of interest. The investigation was prompted by allegations the couple were involved in a close personal relationship while Kelly was voting on issues that impacted Ogren.

Critics contend Ogren and Kelly failed to comply with closed session privacy laws, conflict of interest rules, residence laws and ethics rules.

In her defense, Kelly claims she began dating Ogren about six months ago and they have never discussed issues regarding the sewer.

Her former husband, Shaun Kelly, said Ogren would tell Maria Kelly how she should vote on district issues before board meetings and would follow up with discussions over closed session meetings, a claim supported by Ogren’s county cell phone records.

These records show Ogren and Kelly spoke regularly from early 2007 though late 2009, when Ogren stopped using a county cell phone. Some calls lasted more than an hour and many were made during the work day.

For example, on Jan. 2, 2009, Kelly called Ogren at  9 p.m. and they remained on the line for more than two hours, their third phone exchange that day.

Critics claim that the relationship between Ogren and Kelly began before Kelly ran for office in 2008. Ogren went as far as paying people cash for promoting Kelly’s election, several Los Osos residents said.

At the same time, Ogren was under fire for illegally backdating a government contract.

Ogren was temporarily running the Los Osos district when Montgomery Watson Harza (MWH) was retained by the district for wastewater project management in early September 1999. Prior to his work with the district, Ogren had worked for a subcontractor of MWH.

Ogren did not sign the contract, nor did any board member. Instead, Ogren waited several weeks until Bruce Buell began his stint as the new district manager, and then he told Buell to backdate the MWH contract.

In 2006, Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Brown acknowledged that “falsification of a public record by a public employee is a felony,” and that a criminal act relating to the backdating apparently had occurred. But Brown declined further investigation by determining that a three-year statute of limitation had expired.

The 2006 LOCSD Board believed the district attorney’s decision was wrong because penal code Section 803(c) says the time limitations do not commence until the discovery of an offense and filed a complaint with the Construction Management Association.

The court stayed the complaint when the district filed for Chapter 9 Bankruptcy Protection.

MWH asked the district to drop its complaint to the contractors’ association in exchange for MWH forgiving a $1 million bankruptcy claim against the district.

Meanwhile, Kelly ran for the board and was seated in 2008.

On Dec. 17, 2009, Kelly voted in favor off the MWH proposed settlement. County phone records indicate that Kelly and Ogren spoke twice the morning before the vote, once the day after the vote, and four times on Dec. 19, 2009.

Kelly’s vote to settle that particular case nullified Ogren’s culpability in ordering the back dating of the MWH contract.

Ogren and Kelly have since both divorced from their spouses and allegedly spent many evenings at Ogren’s San Luis Obispo home.

On June 17, as suspicions grew that Kelly no longer lived in Los Osos, a requirement to serve on the board, she abruptly stepped down from her position as vice president of the district.

Maria Kelly contends she never moved out of her Los Osos home—a statement discounted by court documents filed by Shaun Kelly in May 2010.

“Maria moved out of the family residence in January 2010,” Shaun Kelly says in the documents. “She moved back in March or April 2010. She used the converted garage as her bedroom until August 2010 when I moved out with the children.”

 


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I noticed that Lynette has spammed a bit on here since I left for the day. Oh well… someone needs to find a hobby.


A. You are TheFacts, therefore you MUST be correct


As a matter of fact, I am, and can back up everything I’ve said. How about you? “I’m just here to counter the lies.” Can’t “counter the lies” simply by saying you’re “countering the lies.” Not one of your posts has posted any credible shred of evidence that debunks Velie’s insightful reporting.


B. You are an anonymous blogger


So were you — until you got caught.


C. You think we are stupid


You speak for other people now? What’s this “we” business? You don’t run this ship. I don’t run this ship. I don’t speak for anyone. You don’t speak for anyone. You shouldn’t speak for anyone because you are a compulsive liar. The LOCSD knows you’re a compulsive liar, and you’re about to lose your seat on the Emergency Services Committee because you are a compulsive liar and a nasty person.


Why continue posting when you know what will happen? Are you suicidal? Do you get turned on from being slapped around?


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TheFacts,


Firstly, I am not being “slapped around.” But is that what you think you and others are doing to me here? That’s pretty ugly and rather sick.


Interesting how what you accuse me of doing, you are doing yourself. Do you read your stuff before you post?


I do speak for people I know – the few that still read this stuff – that think, as do I, that it is going way over the line to take this article, slanted as it is, and extrapolate and embroider upon the allegations into hard truth. That is just wrong.


If you can back up what you have said, then prove it. Point us to your sources.


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Lynette, I see that YOU are STILL in denial regarding Karen’s very INFORMATIVE & FACTUAL article. Take those blinders off, you can’t see the forest for the trees! You are just a hateful, argumentative person who simply will not face facts, especially when the facts concern SLO County, Bruce Gibson, Paavo Ogren & Maria Kelly (your former “running mate”). YOU are just as corrupt as Maria, Paavo, Pandora, Gibson, Buel, Jensen & the rest of your TAXPAYER WATCH & Save the Dream cronies. Get a life & Get OVER YOURSELF!


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QUOTING THEFACTS: “You speak for other people now? What’s this ‘we’ business”?


She’s not speaking for me. Just sayin’….


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It certainly does look like the sewer is going to happen. But, no matter how you look at it, the people who made the sewer happen did so in corrupt ways that took advantage of the working class people of Los Osos. The people of Los Osos were lied to and mis-led by corrupt self-serving politicians from all over the county and the state and were then blamed for their “problems”. In the end, the working people will be forced to pay for a large project at a time when the economy has tanked and is still in the process of tanking. This project is going to drive many residents out of Los Osos and cause undue pain for those who opt to keep their homes. Hey all you pro-sewer people, I’ll see you all in hell.


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So why are you going to hell jimmy_me – that you can see us there I mean?


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It seems that this Kelly/Ogren story is unravelling like the Watergate break-in with CCN replacing the W/Post.


But, to quote Bob Woodward “If you’e gonna do it, do it right. If you’re going to hype it, hype it with facts”.


All that is needed now is a “Deep throat” character. Follow the money.


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Uh…forgive me for playing “The Professor of the Bleeding Office,” but wouldn’t the “Deep Throat” character be Maria Kelly?


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Thanks Mary for responding to that lob! Saved me the trouble:)


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I prepared a more thorough debunk of Lynette Tornatzky, and hopefully the moderator will not remove my comments.


Tornatzky has chided the “angry, pseudonymed bloggers” when she, herself, has been one.


Yes, there’s a lot of people angry. If you have someone in local government who has a relationship with someone that has significant authority over a significant asset of their district, then there’s anger. That anger is not necessarily some ulterior motive to “stop the sewer” or show “anti-sewer” sentiment. The comments you see here are a common knee-jerk reaction to corruption — and people are simply tired of it. A lot of the people who have commented on here so far are people who don’t live in Los Osos, and have said so repeatedly in other articles — so why would they be “anti-sewer” in a town they don’t live in?


I created this account, “TheFacts” originally as a means of educating the public about Mrs. Tornatzky, and I’ll continue to do so. Tornatzky, who is a spokeswoman for Taxpayers Watch, was Kelly’s running mate for the LOCSD in 2006. Taxpayers Watch’s co-founder Gordon Hensley, who we all know was one of the recalled board members, previously retained an environmental attorney that Kelly served as a secretary for. Though there was clear conflict of interest, Kelly did not recuse herself when she voted on settling Taxpayers Watch’s lawsuit with the district.


Tornatzky has been assigned by the top brass of Taxpayers Watch to crush dissent on these blogs. Joyce Albright, co-founder of Taxpayers Watch, once told Tornatzky at a LOCSD to “shut them up.” This is her job. This is what she does. If she really was “not desperate, just busy,” she would not be countering everyone’s dissenting opinion out of desperation — but I suppose that’s what she means by the “busy” part.


My comment on the bottom of this page illustrates what she does to people who disagree with her. Oh, did I mention she e-mails people’s workplaces and tries to get them fired. Ask Mark Low. Ask Lisa Schicker and Chuck Cesena. Ask Aaron. She’s gone after those people, stalked them, threatened them, and tried to ruin their lives — and over what? Because they have different opinions? This woman is a very sick creature. Very sick.


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QUOTING THE FACTS:


“Tornatzky has chided the “angry, pseudonymed bloggers” when she, herself, has been one.


She does seem to be hung up on posters doing what internet participants routinely do–use a pseudonym for interaction on the internet.


It’s because of people like Lynette that, IMO, it is a VERY BAD THING to use one’s physical-world name.


———————


QUOTING THE FACTS:

“Tornatzky has been assigned by the top brass of Taxpayers Watch to crush dissent on these blogs. Joyce Albright, co-founder of Taxpayers Watch, once told Tornatzky at a LOCSD to “shut them up.” This is her job. This is what she does. If she really was “not desperate, just busy,” she would not be countering everyone’s dissenting opinion out of desperation — but I suppose that’s what she means by the “busy” part.


LOL–the sentence in bold, above, is hysterical!


It takes reading, oh, about 2 of LT’s posts to realize that anybody she is supporting is as of low ethics, honesty and morality as is LT herself.


It would be like Satan offering to be your political campaign supporter. What kind of evil loser would want Satan representing them in any way, shape or form?


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And we should believe these allegations because…


A. You are TheFacts, therefore you MUST be correct

B. You are an anonymous blogger

C. You think we are stupid


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Didn’t blog for a bit to see what would happen over here. Amazing —the gallons of venom spewed over innuendo, baseless assertions, and accusations by unnamed critics. If you angry, pseudonymed bloggers live your daily lives carrying around this amount of hatred, I pray for your souls.


I’m sure it will be of no interest to those vested in hatred and who prefer to disregard actual fact, but Paavo still has that very same cell phone right now, the County just stopped paying for employee’s phones, that’s all. Karen has still never interviewed Maria. Fair reporting, good reporting—hardly! It is hard to even call this stuff reporting!


Maria and Paavo don’t “dispense jobs,” nor am I looking for one. I simply defend the truth and my friends AND the County’s project. I also clearly see that all this garbage is a distraction aimed to plant doubt and to attempt to gain support for stopping the project and for dissing the County’s efforts, (thanks also to Kacho for his bill that passed UNANIMOUSLY), to help with the cost for low income residents. Most can see through these distractions and are turned off by all the negativity here.


Well, keep spewing in the wind if you must. It truly amounts to nothing in terms of the project. If you think somehow that you are “helping” the citizens of Los Osos, you really need to do a reality check.


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Nice try at spin control LT. Too late unfortunately. For some, this isnt about stopping the sewer. It is about conflict of interest. If Maria had kept her massive ego and overbearing personality in check, this wouldn’t even be discussed. However, when she made sure her name was in the tribune after the teens’ accident, she left the door wide open. “You can accomplish far more sometimes being silent, than you can ever do by speaking. Open mouth, easy target. You may want to think about it, LT.


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And when no conflict of interest is proven by the County investigation waytogo, will you apologize for your words or just rant that the County is corrupt?


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LT – Who do you think you are? I will not be apologizing to you or any other bottom feeder. It was and is corruption and conflict of interest. Now you can predict the future of this outcome of this situation? I can see why some (whom you think are friends of yours) think you are not considered bright. You don’t know who I am, so be careful about how you phrase things.


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QUOTING WAYTOGO: Who do you think you are?


She’s a very small fish in an even smaller pond, with dreams of someday, somehow, achieving her dream: advancing to the level of a crossing-guard in San Miguel.


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Mary, perfectly well said. Thank you. I would really like to know how Tornetsky got on the LOCSD board in the first plqce! How and when was this allowed? Thanks, MM


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Is she still serving LOCSD in any official capacity? Sufferin’ Jesus, what is wrong with the Board, anyway? She is a terrible representation of LOCSD.


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Based on the fact that the County is having members of its own staff investigate the charges against another of its staff members, it’s pretty clear the County is corrupt.


I expect the County to find that Ogren did nothing wrong and, indeed, that he walks on water, brings eyesight to the blind, and turns water into wine.


But it is a step that has to be done before referring the case on up to the State AG. If we didn’t get the County to do their little hand-job of an investigation on Ogren first, the AG would probably boot it back down to the County level, anyway.


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I don’t think the State will do just a hand-job investigation like the County is likely to do.


Since the State has already had to spend its time and resources investigating one Ogren-led conflict-of-interest debacle, I’m thinking if the State has to return again, they will not be very happy with Ogren thumbing his nose at the State by continuing his affair with Kelly before, during, and AFTER the State found Ogren’s Public Works Department to be filthy with conflict-of-interest-laden embezzlement of SLOCo resources.


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Ha-ha-ha—good luck convincing the State that there is anything to even investigate in this sewer-political web-work of innuendo and citizen-fueled allegations. Try not to take out your frustrations over here though, when they give you your well-deserved brush off.


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IMO, there is quite a bit of evidence indicating the violation of closed session privacy laws, ethic rules, conflict of interest regulations, and, residency rules.


If the County does its brush-off of the complaints, as expected, then we’ll see what the State is interested in doing.


As I said before, I would think the State has SLOCo in their sites now, after the nose-thumbing the County did previously.


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Why even BOTHER responding to this HATEFUL WENCH? Don’t waste your time, Tornatzky is totally irrelevant in the grand scheme of things…She’s simply “DOING HER JOB” as directed by Pandora, all “the Dreamers”, and of course, Taxpayer Watch aka Gorden Hensley, Joyce Albright, Sharon Fredericks (sp), et al…As far as “Katcho’s bill”…It simply does NOT go far enough. There’s too much “wiggle room” for the County to do NOTHING, which is PAR for SLO County…


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She is a hateful wench who should keep her mouth shut. The fact that she is on the LOCSD is scay and angering. No more response from me, I’m done wasting time with that moron. Thanks RU4REAL. Keep up putting on the pressure!


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Well, there is one good reason for responding to her BS….it’s because it IS BS.


Statements that are left unchallenged on message boards sometimes are viewed later on and believed to be the truth just because the comments weren’t challenged.


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And that is why I blog MaryMalone. To counter the lies.


Just keep digging yourself that hole though, proving my points on venom, innuendo, assertions and accusations.


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Still waiting for the “proof” that some cell calls “debunk” whoever blah blah blah. The article though certainly does prove the wisdom of taking sewer matters out of the hands of local moonbats, oddballs, and tin foil mad hatters and into the control of rational adults, who yes sometimes do engage in romance.


Dust off yer checkbooks!


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You like big gov.? Take it outa the hands of the people? Good news then for someone like you……..that’s what we’re getting internationally really, except for the rare exceptions such as here in LO

So why would someone who lives in LO not want their only local control??????

What was @ the core of this whole locally motivated excercise? The fricken high cost.

Then you call your neighbors names and the Kelly scam on her neighbors was cool with you? Really?


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Well, well, well…Lynette I see you’ve resurected yet another one of your “blog aliases”…SewerHeightsRez aka Lynnette Tornatsky, give it a rest, the propaganda is NOT working.


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Wow, I think you got that right. That explains the miserable outlook.


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I am not SewerHeightsRez – ask CalCoast if you don’t believe me. And my name is spelled Tornatzky.


Propaganda? No fact. When you get your December tax bill, your sewer tax will be there – along with your old sewer assessment if you didn’t pay up front.


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AFAIK Lynnette is correct, guessing identities = noisy waste of time, please don’t.


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I agree. Her screen name would be “SewerDepthsRez,” if she was going to have one of that genre, and who knows and who cares, anyway.


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Hour long calls at 2 a.m. doesn’t sound like regular business to me.


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Obviously Paavo & Maria have “reverted to being teen agers” with those late night, hours long phone calls. I got over THAT episode in my life when I was about 19. It goes beyond “growing up” for these two, they are completely immoral & corrupt. I don’t care if they screw up THEIR OWN LIVES, but in this case, they’ve screwed over an entire community & I’m NOT about to look the other way on that one. I’ll do whatever it takes to get these degenerates convicted of “conflict of interest”, because the proof is certainly there. SLO County is not good at “POLICING THEIR OWN”, so it will take the State & the AG. to do the real investigating of this case.


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And just what are you doing to make that happen? Supplying video and cd’s of recorded conversations?


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When you can actually post without using red herrings and attacking the messenger, then you might have some credibility.


I don’t know either Ogren or Kelly. There’s no hatred involved with them as people. So, at least as far as I am concerned–and most of the other people posting here, as far as I can see–you can try another reframing the argument…the one about “hatred” is simply too obviously transparent.


I do experience outrage over corrupt government led by political officials, and that is the topic of this message board folder, IMO.


You an also stop your attempt at reframing the argument by claiming that all who are outraged over the conflict of interests and fraud perpetrated by Kelly and Ogren is actually an attempt to derail Ogren’s sewer vision.


The issue is the corrupt actions of Ogren and Kelly, and how they have abused their power.


In addition, I guess now we can add to Ogren’s corruption the fact that he made his late-night booty calls to Kelly on the County/taxpayer’s dime.


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MaryMalone, can you simply name the code violation numbers your think they have broken without the dramatic and inflammatory language? Just the numbers, I’ll look up the text.


How do you know Ogren made late night booty calls? Got this on video? If not, you should refrain from telling lies.


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In CCN’s article, State Investigation of Public Works Scandal Nearing End, (http://calcoastnews.com/2009/07/state-investigation-of-public-works-scandal-nearing-end/), it is noted that SLOCo adopted conflict of interest code “patterned after the state Government Code. Both require financial disclosures by elected and appointed

county officials and specific employees. The state code prohibits county employees from benefiting from any contract approved by his or her department.”


The state code (87300-87313) can be found at:

http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/GOV/1/9/7/3/s87302


In reviewing the news articles about this Ogren-led debacle, it becomes quite clear that Ogren must have the intelligence of a bowl of cream-o-wheat because he presided over the Randy Ghezzi/debacle, which apparently happened right under Ogren’s nose and it took whistleblowers to give him a clue what was going on.


These Paavo-led thieves were quite brazen about their theft of SLOCo resources and, when called on it by their subordinates, threatened retaliation.


It was so bad that the State had to come in to investigate.


That just happened in ended in 2009—only 2 years ago. It is widely believed that Ogren and Kelly have been involved in an extramarital affair, at the same time they were hiding their relationship AND using their official positions to benefit the other’s career and paycheck, for the past 4 years.


That means Ogren was himself involved in a huge conflict of interest at the same time his two lead managers in Public Works were being investigated BY THE STATE for embezzlement and conflicts of interest.


And here it is, 4 years later, and Ogren is STILL involved in a huge conflict of interest with Kelly. AND–LOL!–up until recently he was spending HOURS a day talking to Kelly on the County’s dime by using the County-paid-for cell phone.


My goodness. That right there is a theft of County resources.


I bet the State won’t be so happy to have to AGAIN come in and investigate another Ogren-led conflict-of-interest debacle, this time involving Ogren himself.


When the State finds out that Ogren started his little “conflict of interestt” scam with Maria Kelly 4 years ago, and continued the affair while (and AFTER) the State was investigating the Keller-Ghezi embezzlement of Count resources, I bet State investigators are going to interpret that as Ogren thumbing his nose at the State and their investigations.


Perhaps–in an attempt to send a message to the SLOCo government who allowed the theft of county resources to go on for decades, and now have allowed the conflict-of-interest relationship between Ogren and Kelly to go on for at least 4 years– the State will make an example of Ogren and Kelly.


We should suggest that in our letters to the State requesting they, once again, spend their time investigating another conflict-of-interest theft of County resources by SLOCo’s Public Works Department–this time, by the head of the Department himself.


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Oh, MaryMalone, you are making stuff up again. You don’t even know the FACT that Ogren did NOT turn in his phone – HE STILL HAS THE SAME PHONE—the County just stopped paying his and the other County employee’s phone bills IN 2009.


Please— show us WHICH CODES have been broken and with what evidence. Why can’t you tell us?


Phone calls? So what was said? YOUR GUESSES will convince no one who can prosecute.


“Widely believed” is CONJECTURE and means NOTHING to the State (or to any people who prefer facts to make up their minds on an issue).


I see that you are putting out a lot of effort here, You are manically dot-connecting for the amusement of this little blog audience. But it’s going nowhere else because you don’t any facts that mean anything.


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QUOTING LYNETTE T: “I see that you are putting out a lot of effort here, You are manically dot-connecting for the amusement of this little blog audience. But it’s going nowhere else because you don’t any facts that mean anything.


It wasn’t any effort at all, really, if one is familiar with government information websites.


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Tornasty, Kelly and Ogren, disgraced and found out.


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It sounds like an Unholy Trinity to me.


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Dave writes:


“Here are three good local talk show hosts for you to call… Bill Benica at KYNS…”


You mean THIS Bill Benica?


(Awww gawd, too funny.)


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Reminds me of the time I called in to Dave’s show when they had Blaksly on right after the failed “negotiations” with Polhimius (sorry about spelling)

“why did it fail” i asked. Sam was honest, he said “Egos’ people were to stubborn to fix things right.


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You can natter away with your conspiracy theories here on this newspaper blog but you know what? It won’t mean squat in real life. We are getting the County’s sewer project despite Ripley’s pitch letter, threats of a lawsuit and no one is going to investigate from the A.G.’s office as this is the same level of silly twaddle as Lisa’s 1200 pages of nothing. It all adds up to a big zero. So have fun but start saving – the first sewer bills come with the December taxes.


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LT – dont cling to a sinking ship. Dont believe everything Maria Kelly tells you. This woman wouldnt know the truth if it kicked her up the rear. A waste of time defending her and Paavo. You WILL get sucked under. And what will you get out of it in the end? A guarateed county job from Paavo or Maria? I sincetely doubt.


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“Natter away”???

This conspiracy isn’t a theory, it’s an outed fact. You knew Kelly was in bed with Ogren so what are you defending here?

You Ogren and Kelly need to talk to your Rabbi. Maybe he can explain what constitutes a conspiracy, as if you didn’t know.


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Conspiracies, large and small, happen every day. They are a fact of life. There is nothing extraordinary about them.


All a conspiracy requires is for two people to get together and plot to decide the outcome of something in their favor. Every meeting behind closed doors is a conspiracy. All diplomacy, foreign policy, business decisions and political strategies are done in this way.


The hallmark of those involved in conspiracy theories is their willingness to accuse others of being involved in them. Those who benefit the most from the stigmata of being called a “conspiracy theorist” are those who are themselves involved in conspiracies.


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It has to matter, Lynette, otherwise you would not be so desperate as to waste your time here trying to de-louse the reputations of Ogren and Kelly.


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MaryMalone, telling the truth isn’t “de-lousing,” or ever a waste of time. I am here simply to counter lies. I am not desperate, just busy.


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1. Red herring, reframing the argument. No one here but Lynette Tornatzky is obsessed with Ogren’s sewer-vision.


2. “It won’t mean squat in real life.” REALLY? It sure meant something to Ghezzi and Keller, Paavo Ogren’s two head managers of Public Works, who (according to a California State investigation completed in 2009) had major conflicts of interests and were responsible for the on-going theft of SLOCo resources.


I think it will mean A LOT when the State has to come back down here to investigate yet another Paavo-led conflict-of-interest/theft-of-SLOCo-resources investigation, this time of the head of the same Public Works Department the State had to investigate just 2 years ago.


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