Los Olivos Sewer Zones . . . or the Twilight Zone?

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

The Los Olivos Community Services District’s next General Meeting is

this Wednesday (June 14): 6:00 pm at St. Mark’s.

Please bring your questions and concerns, e.g.,

• Why doesn’t the community know anything about when the LOCSD’s specialized committees (Technical Committee, Project Management Committee, and Grants Committee) meet, and why doesn’t the community receive records of what is discussed and decided during those meetings? Just last month, the following meetings were held and there was no notice, no agenda, and no minutes for any of them:

  • Technical Committee met for 1.5 hours on May 15. Seems that General Manager Guy Savage and District Engineer Doug Pike were also in this meeting, and the company that employs Mr. Pike was assigned the job of developing a specialized map for use at the June 14 General Meeting.

  • Grants Committee met for 1 hour on May 17.

  • Project Management Committee met for 1.25 hours on May 24.

Why does this matter?

Because secret meetings can result in the creation of entirely new and different plans the public knows nothing about.

Like this new plan (below) for a “zoned” approach that appears to have arisen out of whole cloth following the Technical Committee’s non-public May 15 meeting:

So many questions arise when one reviews this plan (at pp. 78-88 of the current agenda packet):

—> What is this new plan using six “Zones”?

—> Who devised it? What expertise do those people have in the construction of sewer systems?

—> When was community input sought?

—> Who decided our local public school’s inclusion is “to be determined”?

—> Wasn’t Mattei’s supposed to be part of this project so it could help with the cost to downtown businesses? Who decided Mattei’s inclusion is “to be determined”?

It also matters because the LOCSD bound itself by unanimous resolution to ensure transparency for its operations and expenditure of public funds.

LOCSD Resolution 18-04, which includes provision that all committee meetings, including ad hoc committees, are to be public.  Here is Guy Savage not making that information public (even upon direct request), but also showing that the public has not been told of the time or place of any so called “ad hoc” committee meetings for at least the last year.

Transparency has been lacking in many aspects of the LOCSD’s operation over the last couple of years. For example:

• Failure to surrender Officer Positions on the LOCSD Board: Appointment of new Officers was not on April or May 2023 agendas, and General Manager Guy Savage says it is only being done every two years.  However, agendas from prior years (2020, 2021, 2022), show it was done every April/May.

• Failure to follow rules and standards set forth in the LOCSD’s own Resolutions: LOCSD Resolution 19-04, which includes provisions that Board members and District Staff are to commission studies and enter into contracts only as long as they are consistent with the Project Description contained in Resolution 19-04.  Here is Stantec change order, changing and enlarging the scope of the project to be studied.  Here is then-President Lisa Palmer stating the Board will no longer follow the 19-04 project description.  It appears that the 3 board members in that same meeting asked the General Manager to facilitate a serial meeting to ensure no resistance to the change in plan.  

• Failure to disclose Public Records: In the face of repeated requests from the public for information about the continued withholding/redaction of legal bills for the period of June 2021 to earlier this year, the LOCSD Board continues to withhold from the public information about the legal work done for the District and paid for with taxpayer dollars. This withholding of legal billing statements was never the practice before or after that two-year window, but the missing information is still being withheld.

• Failure to adopt Bylaws: Despite being in existence for over 5 years now, the Los Olivos CSD does not have bylaws, which are required by law (California Government Code Section 61045(f): "The board of directors shall adopt rules or bylaws for Its proceedings.")