Warding off water wars

Jazuz H. Christi! You have hit the nail on the head. This is THE most important issue for residents of San Luis Obispo–and the nation, for that matter–to consider. Each one of us needs to understand the arguments on both sides, in coming to a decision about what to do with our water. We need water to drink, water to grow food, water for energy, water for transportation, water for livestock, water for the health of the planet, water for our very survival. How do we allocate it?

Fortunately, we do not have to re-invent the wheel. We can look to other communities to see how they allocate their water. We can look to pre-existing contracts to see how allocations are worded. We can use the advice of experts in the field. One thing we don’t need is obstruction to access those public documents and information. We need to fire any lawyer that obstructs that access because when they fail to provide the information they have a duty to give us, they do not act in our best interests.

We need an honest answer from our government employees when we ask them, “What is the status of my town’s water? Where does our water come from? What is the source of that water? How much water is there? How much water is being used, and by whom? How much water will our town need in the future, for each type of use?

When I attempted to get that information from Oceano’s local board, I was threatened with a lawsuit for asking for public records. I was threatened by the town’s general manager Thomas Geaslen, with arrest.

I was threatened with arrest by Sheriff’s Southstation commander Kenneth M. Conway, who told me that if I asked a question at one of the Halcyon Advisory Committee meetings that he “would report me to the FBI as a terrorist.” This threat was uttered in the presence of newspaper reporters, at that public meeting.

I was ordered out of the district office by sheriff’s deputy Scott Odom for asking Geaslen why he was charging me two and half times the cost of copies, then refusing to provide the board resolution which might ratify his retaliatory and unauthorized increase in the cost.

I refused to leave, since this was my First Amendment right to know the government’s business, which they had the gall to ignore.

Odom kept asking Geaslen to make a “citizen’s arrest,” so he could throw me in jail.

Geaslen, who was Supervisor Paul Teixeira’s campaign manager after Geaslen’s house was foreclosed, decided not to do this. I sensed that he didn’t want reporters snooping into his former business dealings as a self-professed “loan arranger.”

After that, when I attempted to ask Oceano’s water maintenance staff whether they keep records on the dates they actually read the water meters, the district’s employee Steve Langsdorf threatened “to beat my ass.” This threat was both heard and witnessed by my neighbors. But it was Langsdorf, seeking to cover his ass, who called the sheriffs.

The neighbor stepped out on his porch when he heard Langsdorf’s co-worker deny he heard what was said. “Well, I heard you.” said my neighbor to Langsdorf, as he came out from shade of his doorway, where he had witnessed everything.

I thank him for having the courage to take a stand against dishonest employees like Langsdorf, who should not be working for Oceano. There are so many other people out there, who are more capable, who are willing to do an honest day’s work. Why settle for less?

Instead, Thurmond suggested that the best way to keep me from accessing public documents concerning Oceano’s water and sewer problems, would be to ask the Court for a restraining order. She lost. But I have been afraid to go into the office to ask for information or conduct my research into old board agendas and documents not on the net.

The last time I went in, I was refused a receipt for my water payment by Carol Ann Pardo, the board secretary. I always ask for receipts and this was an attempt to provoke an argument. She refused to acknowledge the cash payment with her initials and a date stamp showing that the payment was for the water bill, and not something else. She was trying to start a fight as a way to deny access to the districts public facilities and records.

Then, Geaslen came out and interrupted my question to Celia Ruiz, the person who inputs the residents’ bimonthly water usage details into the computer after these are given to her by Dan Silviera. This is an ongoing problem. Why?

The board’s new hire –(the one who has the most to learn since he never set foot in the OCSD prior to his appointment, and who is not a resident of Oceano)–has succeeded in poisoning any kind of working relationship with the women who run the office, Carol Ann Pardo and Celia Z. Ruiz.

In fact, Geaslen has usurped their job duties using his “supervisorial” authority over them: he has instructed all his employees not to answer any questions if I should come in to do business with the District. He has singled me out, and my attempt to do research or get receipts for cash payments, is particularly bothersome to him. He is afraid of my ability to learn. Rather than do his own research, he would rather interfere with mine.

There is plenty of information for both of us to learn, when it comes to Oceano’s water and sewer funding. The big question for me is, where are the original contracts, invoices, project completion records, and billing and time cards? The last time I was threatened with arrest for asking, Carol Ann Pardo had just boxed them up, called “Steve” to ask if he wanted these records before she “threw them away,” and I asked her to make a list of the titles of the documents she was “getting rid of.”

Pardo refused to do this. When Geaslen came, she claimed I was “causing problems” by asking for these. Geaslen threatened to call the sheriffs. I saved him the trouble and brought one into the office for him.

This was during the grand jury’s investigation of the South County Sewer District and OCSD’s “record-keeping” practices. The deputy had barely stepped out of the substation to speak with me when he was immediately called back to the Substation by Kenneth Conway– but not before he had followed me back to the OCSD office to view the three large boxes of documents Pardo had been planning to “throw out.”

When the deputy heard the grand jury was investigating both Wallace and Oceano’s sewer district, he stated to Geaslen, “Don’t remove those boxes from the office.” And he returned to the station.

Niether those documents nor my written public records requests have been answered, and my requests to view those public records was refused. I have not seen those records since, and they have been expressly denied by both Geaslen and Thurmond.

It is time for change in Oceano. And change is coming regardless of the machinations of a few bad employees.

With classic hubris, Geaslen has directed Pardo and Ruiz to let him know when I pay my water bill to the OCSD, or attempt to do research, or ask any routine question, in order to force me into personal contact with him.

Geaslen stated that “their job duties had changed.” I asked him to provide a written description of their job duties so I could know what to expect of them when attempting to conduct routine business at the OCSD. Geaslen refused to inform me as to what their jobs were, and he rufused to provide written descriptions of their job duties.

So, I have no way of knowing what they can do for me, or who to ask. There is no way to avoid Gealen, who is 100 per cent the intitiating party in all my conversations with him.

There is simply no way to avoid the sexual harassment, and hostile work environment created by him, and manipulated with backing from Lucey, Angelo and the “old guard,” from the days when the Davises ran the water district and controlled the finances of the CSD.

Pardo and Ruiz, who view public access to district records as a threat to their job longevity, view this as welcome strategy. With no one in the office doing research in the public record, there are less witnesses to them closing the office before business hours end, as they did when Montemurro was there.

There are no witnesses to their taking long lunches, without reflecting that time off on their time cards, as Pardo has done.

There is no questioning of Pardo’s or Ruiz’s obstruction to access public records when I ask for them, or of Pardo’s using her work hours to babysit the son of Los Osos resident “Ed” while Ed visits with staff in their offices. (Everyone in Oceano who knows Ed refers to him as “The Guy Who Wants to Shut Down Oceano Airport and Build Housing On It…”)

If the sheriffs haven’t manipulated the video recordings in their surveillance equipment which covers the entrances to the OCSD, their comings and goings should be date and time stamped, should anyone question the truth of my statements.

(Then again, we know what the sheriff’s reputation is for altering audiovisual recordings in the past. Let’s hope there is change for the better with our new elected sheriff.)

I view this as sexual harassment because it appears that Geaslen is offended by a female’s quest for information about the town.

These are true statements, and there must be other Oceano residents who had the experience of trying to do business at the CSD only to find the door locked and the office closed during normal business hours.

I am not only a ratepayer, but will be running for the Oceano’s Board of Directors in the next election, during which Oceano voters will be asked whether or not they want to sell off the town’s water. We must learn about our water rights, and defeat anyone who attempts to obstruct access that most vital public information, as both Lucy, Angelo, and Geaslen are trying to do, so as to manipulate the public’s water rights to benefit a few, without any public scrutiny at all.

Geaslen was placed in his position with a purpose to deny access to public OCSD documents. He has perfected a hostile working environment for me in preparing myself to be a candidate for the OCSD board. His misogyny has much to do with his appointment to his job as general manager.

And inevitably the other women working beneath him will come to recognize his manipulation as defacatory to their individual advancement. I have stated as much to him, after he lost his lawsuit to restrain me from using the public facilities of the district for a public purpose.

However, the district board, and the sheriff’s department have not only refused to intercede in cases of sexual harassment/hostile work environment violations of the Penal Code, but they have purposefully furthered that custom and policy.

Entire lawsuits have been published over years of county personnel decisions, and in county court documents to support my point of view. The tradgedy is that so many of the county’s local women buy into that mentality. Many are blind to the alternatives because they have never travelled, or lived in a multi-cultural environment.

What we need is a little “chispa.”

In acting as Odom did by encouraging Gealen to intimidate and harass me as he did, Odom was derilict in his duties, demonstrating an inability to cope with women as heads of their own household, and as political candidates.

Conway’s malicious threat to slander me to the FBI by making a false charge to them, as he did when he threatened to “report my questions to the Halcyon Advisory Committee” as “terrorism,” was in fact an unlawful obstruction of the right of free speech, association and assembly.

Thus, Conroy was breaking the law while “acting under color of his authority”. In fact, what Conroy, Geaslen and Odom were doing was using their respective cloaks of authority to threaten me before the committee and Oceano’s community, in order to obstruct access to public information.

This was particularly apparent in light of the fact that one of the committee members received $100,000.00 of public money from the OCSD to benefit her own private property.

What did Oceano get in return? Where is that accounting? How were the funds spent in a way which justified its expenditure? How did it benefit Oceano, or bring money back into the district?

It was when I attempted to access the old Board agendas and packets to answer that question that I was threatened with arrest by Odom, Conway and Gealen (Teixeira’s former campaign manager and husband of Teixeira’s current legislative analyst.)

I was not “disrupting a meeting,” I was asking for “a point of order,” to ask a question. So, from my perspective, it looks as if these employees are facilitating the cover up information, (or the complete lack of record-keeping,) which they do not want Oceano residents to know: where their water is going and where is the disrict’s money is going?

It is that simple. The next logical question to ask is this: what is Geaslen’s personal financial stake in all this, beyond merely seeing that his job gets done, and the public records kept in the normal course of the government’s business?

Or is it a case of simple mysogyny, and fear of female intelligence and potential?

I have to think that was Geaslen’s motive when he promoted Davis’s water maintenance employee to “supervisor” after Silviera had Langsdorf vandalize my home by spray-painting my retaining wall with paint. Why? Because I complained that Silviera had refused to comply with the utilties’ underground service request to identify my utility lines when they asked him to–three times.

After Geaslen ignored these requests, I complained to our new sheriff’s administration. The sheriff’s advised Geaslen to have Langsdorf remove the paint. True to form, Langsdorf removed half of it.

Neighbors witnessed this, as well.

This begs the question, do you really want the County’s employees to be deciding what to do with the water you are paying for, that is coming out of your tap?

Of course, every person who drinks water has the inalienable right to know what is happening to it, and who is controlling it. This is part of the constitutional right to the peace and quiet enjoyment of their own home, and to “life, liberty and the pursuit of hapiness.” God forbid, someone with the mentality of Conway or Geaslen ever got control over such a vital and necessary natural resource.

Yet, public information about what Oceano is doing with its water rights, is expressly being denied to residents who live in Oceano for the sole purpose of keeping them in the dark about how to manage their own local water resources, and who Thurmond is negotiating with to sell off Oceano’s water prior to Oceano’s vote on the issue in the November, 2012 election.

If you don’t know about your water and how it gets to your tap, and trust blindly that you can place that knowledge into the hands of a few bureaucrats, then you may wake up one morning and find gas coming out of your showerhead instead of water. You cannot choose your leaders without knowing what they know. An informed public makes the best decisions.

Thurmond was already involved in the Santa Maria groundwater litigation as an attorney for the County of San Luis Obispo before she was hired by Montemurro and former director Jim Hill. Therefore, she has a personal financial stake in siezing control of Oceano’s water entitlement and decision-making power over the sale of water and giving that control to the County. She works for the County Counsel’s subcontractor, the law firm of Hall & Heiatt.

She wants to give control over Oceano’s allotment of water to the County’s Dept. of Public Works. Why? Because this will personally keep money flowing to Hall & Heiatt and to her. What do you want to bet that Oceano’s water will be sold to Nipomo so they can develop housing and oil on the mesa?

It will benefit individual developers and attorneys who have financial investments there and in Pismo Beach. It will benefit the private engineering firm of John Wallace. This is my prediction, but certainly not my wish. I want Oceano to reap the benefits of its water conservation efforts, to use its “excess water” to replenish its groundwater, and to benefit the town’s residents. I would rather use the county’s planning resources to develop granny units on existing properties to benefit homeowners, using the county’s own award-winning standard plans for these simple and safe structures.

Once people who live here can improve their homes and make themselves economically secure without being gullible enough to take out a ridiculously inflated bank loan in the middle of a depression, then we can worry about selling our beach front properties to large scale developers and individuals living in the top one percent of the income bracket.

But if the District is permitted to do business as it has done in the past, Oceano will lose the power to decide whether it wants to sell its “excess water” during periods of heavy rainfall, or to recharge its groundwater. The District will take away the power of Oceano residents to decide who it wants to sell its water to, or to negotiate for what it wants of equal value in return. This is why access to public records is so important. This is why, when you are denied access to know what your local government is doing, the red flag should go up.

That is why when asked who the OCSD was negotiating with over water rights, Thurmond shot back, “That’s not for the public to know. If you want to know, read the lawsuit.” This response which expressly violates public records law, sends the clear message that Thurmond views Oceano residents as “the opposing party.”

In the ten months she has been billing OCSD for her services, she has never once given a public accounting of her involvement with parties connected to the Santa Maria groundwater litigation, like the Teixeira family. She has never publicly admitted her firm’s ongoing financial involvement with the County Counsel’s Office and the County of San Luis Obispo.

When Thurmond was asked point blank at an OCSD meeting which parties she was negotiating with in the Santa Maria groundwater litigation, Thurmond declared that Oceano residents did not have the right to know.

She was wholeheartedly backed in this false conclusion by Directors Lori Angello and Mary Lucey who parroted her statements. The remaining OCSD members sat dumb, apparently ignorant of the most basic requirement that the negotiating parties be identified with specificity in the minutes of the closed sessions and in the board’s public agendas summarizing the “closed sessions.”

Thurmond has a conflict of interest between her role as the county’s lawyer in the Santa Maria groundwater litigation, and as Oceano’s CSD attorney. Why? Because there is a conflict in Thrumond’s representation of the OCSD Board, and the County’s desire to seize control over that water so it can sell it to someone else.

There is a conflict of interest between Thurmond’s represensation of individual Oceano employees now employeed and Oceano’s right to manage its own water resources. The Board has demonstrated that it is not taking care of Oceano’s business. That is why they got investigated by the grand jury. That is why Oceano has been permitted for decades to squander the town’s resources and funds. The same people who dug that hole are back in office, and no one is doing their homework.

When was the last time you actually got a report by Mary Lucy of a County Flood Control District meeting? When did you ever hear Lori Angello act in any capacity other than as a sound bite? Who is providing facts and solutions to the community?

The County Planning and Building Dept. wants to centralize authority over the water by putting it in the hands of pro-developer James Caruso, and the County’s Dept. of Public Works.

In the meantime, Thurmond is being paid by the OCSD and negotiating Oceano’s water rights with individuals who were never identified in agenda documents or minutes pursuant to the Ralph M. Brown Act and the Public Records Act. All we know is that her law firm has sued the OCSD TWICE. When you let Thurmond into the office, you give the opposing attorney–literally–access to your town’s confidential legal documents. What is wrong with this picture?

When I discovered this issue and raised it in a public meeting, Thurmond attempted to have a restraining order placed on me. Neither Thurmond or Oceano’s general manager, Thomas Geaslen, live in Oceano. Geaslen, who lives in Nipomo, has lobbied for Nipomo at the Halcyon Advisory Committee meetings, even while attending as Oceano’s employee.

Thurmond’s law firm Hall & Hieatt, still does business for the County of San Luis Obispo, even though the law firm was reported to have lost its contract with the County after Jay Heiatt used money from the County’s union negotiator Gail Wilcox to make a private investment in the purchase of real estate in San Luis Obispo.

The County is still represented by Hall & Heiatt through its attorney Thurmond to respresent its interests in the ground water litigation. As both the county’s legal representative on the ground water litigation and the lawyer for the OCSD, Thurmond has access to OCSD’s financial position–and to its individual resident’s financial position– which she could then use to undermine Oceano’s bargaining position with respect to its own ability to sell water if it wants to, or to keep the resource to develop its own infrastructure and community. She can use an individual resident’s real estate information to undermine their title ownership or claim to water rights, for the purpose of benefitting another community in which she has a personal business interest.

This reeks of a conflict of interest which also violates the rules of attorney conduct.

Despite Thurmond’s agressive and unethical attempt to threaten candidates for OCSD’s Board of Directors, as well as its residents and homeowners, we need to study Oceano’s water issues and choices.

Do we make the right to water a public right which supercedes the rights of the individual landowner? Do we keep individual water rights and usage a private matter?

Do we keep the status quo; or strike a balance in between?

How do we know what the “status quo” is, if the people we are paying, are working for somebody else?

This is an issue which Thurmond, who is from Bakersfield, is not qualified or authorized to decide on her own.

So here is your first assignment:

Formulate what your position is on the water issue.

Are your water bills claiming you used more water than you actually used? Then go into the District and ASK them to arrange a time when you can be PRESENT at the next reading of your water meter. Record their answer.

Identify BY NAME the public OCSD(?) employee who is reading your water meter. Know what he looks like.

GET A WRITTEN RECORD FROM THE OCSD of the dates, times, and meter readings which that OCSD employee provided to “the District.”

Identify BY NAME the person he handed that information to.

TO WHOM did he provide those numbers?

WHO provided those numbers to Celia Ruiz, who has stated that “she inputs the figures she is given into the computer system.”

Ask HOW those meter readings are then TRANSLATED INTO A BILL which is printed out and sent to residents by Carol Ann Pardo.

If they can’t tell you how the meter at your home gets read and sent to OCSD and spit out as a bill to you at their end, then the employee with whom you are dealing has no right working at the OCSD. Even the computer technician who is getting paid $75.00 an hour to verify the accuracy of the data in the computer must know how to do this, even if he doesn’t know how to change a gasket on his water faucet.

Save your bills, and the envelops they come in. Talk with your neighbors. And if these OCSD EMPLOYEES have a problem reading your water meter when you are home, and can’t give you a close approximation of when they will come out to read the meter, then file a complaint with the Public Uitilities Commission and the State Water Board.

They will tell you what to do next. And on that note, I’m going to make some iced tea.