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Grover Beach wins Golden Fleece Award

September 16, 2024

Statement from Central Coast Taxpayers Association

Today, the Central Coast Taxpayers Association (CCTA), the taxpayer watchdog of the Central Coast of California and San Luis Obispo County, announced its dual awards for 2023.

Each year, CCTA awards its Golden Fleece Award to government officials or entities for exceptionally expensive and wasteful government expenditures. CCTA also awards an exceptional individual its Hero of the Taxpayer Award for outstanding efforts to protect the public from excessive and wasteful spending.

Grover Beach City Council and city administration win Golden Fleece Award

In 2021, the City of Grover Beach implemented a five-year plan of annual water and sewer rate increases promising it would fully fund the Central Coast Blue recycled wastewater project. After paying $3 million for the project, in Sept. 2023, Grover Beach water and sewer customers received a city letter announcing a rate increase that would double their water and sewer rates over four years to pay for the project that had skyrocketed from an early estimate of $24 million to $99 million.

When 2,000 families wrote to the city protesting the increase, the Grover Beach City Council raised rates anyway, and then illegally blocked recalls initiated in response to the increase, approving an estimated $200,000 of ratepayer funds to defend city election violations, and losing in court.

The City Council reduced some of the water rates when it withdrew from the project when it reached $160 million but did not withdraw the scheduled 2021 Central Coast Blue project rate increases, or the sewer increases for the project.

Debbie Peterson wins Hero of the Taxpayer Award

When Debbie Peterson, former Grover Beach mayor, and author of the Integrity 101 series of books about good governance, heard in Sept. 2023 that her water rates would double in four years, she realized that she wouldn’t be able to afford to stay in Grover Beach. Then it came to her that if she couldn’t afford it, it was likely others couldn’t either. She started asking questions.

Before long, 4,000 people in Grover Beach were also questioning the project – a wastewater treatment plant to process Pismo Beach wastewater and inject it into the drinking water aquifer under Grover Beach and Oceano.

Without their permission, the people of Grover Beach would gain a wastewater treatment plant. They would pay twice to repair streets that would be torn up again for pipelines and wells – streets they had repaired by approving a bond in 2014 that currently adds 10% to their property tax bills.

Concerned citizens asked Debbie Peterson to lead their efforts and in ten short months GROVERH2O accomplished the impossible, gathering thousands of signatures for the 2024 Citizen’s Ballot Initiative, G-24 to repeal the water rate increase, and other initiatives that would give Grover Beach voters and residents more say at city hall.

The collective whistleblowers audited water bills, bringing refunds to water customers when the city implemented increases early and again in the reduction of some of the increased charges for the Central Coast Blue project when it was put on hold. The group went on to present an engineering study to the county, which it is now implementing, that will improve management of Lopez water to provide 1,000 to 1,500 additional acre-feet of water a year, an amount equivalent to Grover Beach’s annual use.

“The people of Grover Beach have accomplished the impossible: setting precedent in filing a successful court case against the city for violating election laws, putting the YES on G-24 REPEAL on the November ballot to enforce a full repeal of the increases, provided an economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable water solution for more than enough water to supply the city without the Central Coast Blue project, and seeking the recall of council representatives who did not listen to them,” Peterson said.

“The heroes are the citizens of Grover Beach who together, have fixed their streets and found their voice, demanding a say in how their community goes forward,” Peterson added. “I am so proud of how neighbor and neighbor are working alongside one another in pursuit of good governance. When the people participate, and their elected representatives listen communities thrive.”


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same water source, but after a couple of wet years. Not sure how this fixes the water supply issue when the dry years return. But hey, there is always the next time there isn’t enough water and the scramble to get some creates a new study that finds the same solution as the last solution, is best. Then it will now cost twice as much as before. Public works infrastructure always costs a lot, no matter when it gets done, and the value of those dollars spent isn’t so easy to see when there isn’t a problem anymore. Best of luck to the 5 cities folks.


-18

It’s not either/or. It’s about best practices and up-to-date win-win solutions. No matter how you parse it, the best solution is to store it at Lopez or in the aquifer. Simply a matter of how we do that. Some ways may be better than others.


17

Excellent! The citizens of Grover Beach did what the population of Cambria failed to do. They refused to be railroaded into a verry bad water deal, and instead set themselves up in a much more environmentally friendly and far less expensive way to get needed water. Someone or group should be held accountable for the environmentally damaging, non-functioning setup we are saddled with paying for in San Simeon Creek. It is sucking tens of millions from us whilst providing nothing. In the event it was operational, it would be beyond prohibitably expensive for most of us who live here. Our bills are now soaring, with NOTHING to show for rit.


17

Francesca, thanks for shedding light on this. Grover got fleeced too, and may still get fleeced, but had we paid attention to what happened in Cambria and 2 other SLO agencies we might have avoided it altogether.


15

It’s unclear how the Cambria Community Service District (Board Members and staff) has been able to fleece the ratepayers for many years without an outcry by Cambrians. It appears most Cambrians are flush with cash and don’t care how their money is wasted. Most Cambrians must believe that government overspending and lack of government oversight are good things.


3

Cambria certainly does have some well healed inhabitants, but that is hardly the average here. Many of us are on fixed or limited incomes and the egregious utility bills are no joke at this point.


Unfortunately, there is little recourse for citizens who have been sold a bill of goods by the former CCSD members, who in turn are influenced by the likes of the designer and builder of our current “water machine” albatross in San Simeon Creek. There may be law suits we could pursue, but few involved have the funds, the will, or the expertise to carry that out. They seem convinced that there is nothing we can do. I feel strongly that there should be.


I think it was started in Cambria partially because there were so few here to fight it. They established a precedence of being in an endangered species area, in a flood plain, directly adjacent to a state campground and in The Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary. Of course, it is not yet permitted, a decade after it was built, because of all this, but the County BOS OKed it, so our CCSD went ahead and built. And we are paying, through the nose, with NOTHING to show for it.


The Cambrians of a decade ago, who saw themselves making lots of money from developing lots, selling more houses, etc., convinced the newbies we had to go for it, or sand would be coming out of the taps and were believed. Also, the newbies though we were a bunch of luddites who hadn’t a clue and they, being more sophisticated, knew better. So they called us “against water” (!), and here we are.


Had we built BDAs (Beaver Dam Analogs) in our watershed, we would have spent a very small fraction of the money to substantially improve our watershed and secure our sustainability. The firm that was influencing our CCSD insisted that would be the “most expensive” method of increasing water, even though it is actually the cheapest and most environmentally sound, whilst the desal/toilet to tap/ reclamation kluge we now have is actually the most expensive, environmentally damaging method possible. I and several others strongly opposed. For what that was worth. We are not all rich and we care about the environment.


3

This is one for the ages — for the people of Grover Beach. In 2014, they voted in bond K-14 to fix their streets, and now, in 2024, they have stepped up again to make sure they have an affordable, sustainable water supply in times of drought with Measure G-24.


9