Cleaning Up Rincon Point? Pt. 3
"...that citation is incorrect. The Prop 84 CBI funds were appropriated in Senate Bill 77 (SB 77), Chapter 171, Item No. 3940-101-6051 as a part of the $101,200,000 Item."
So, presuming that's the case, the grant is evidently still alive. I'll leave the affected section of my original post intact but grayed out. More to follow.[/UPDATE]
-Ben
Pop quiz: Given that the majority of homeowners' Yes votes on the sewer were strongly influenced by a promised $2.1 million state grant to offset the project's costs, how many days after the vote did California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger politely wait, before VETOING the bill containing the grant?
A) 3 days
B) 7 days
C) 14 days
D) 21 days
It is, disturbingly, a trick question. The relevant bill was struck down on October 14th, two days before the sewer vote!! Naturally, Rincon residents were kept in the dark about this, even at the public hearing at Carpinteria Sanitary District on Oct. 16th, which was their last chance to cast their vote. Instead, the community continued to be led down the garden path of reassurance that the state grant was a sure thing.
It's true that the state assembly and senate could technically override this veto by a two-thirds vote (note the irony; a two-thirds vote at Rincon would have soundly defeated the sewer project), but the votes are not there; especially in the current fiscal environment of budget cuts, a veto override is vanishingly unlikely. So as the sewer project goes forward, each of us will be on the hook for 20% more cash than we thought before.
So, what can we do? There are unresolved issues surrounding the validity of several of the cast ballots, potentially enough to affect the outcome. Also, the annexation of Rincon Point into the Carpinteria Sanitary District has not yet occurred, and if 25% of affected homeowners sign a protest by December 3rd, the issue will be brought to a vote again. No doubt the sewer mavens will once again tell us to shut up, and simply allow them to shove the sewer down our throats and be done with it, but I'm sorry; that's just not a foie gras I'm willing to swallow. As if I haven't mentioned it before, there are Other, Cheaper, Better Solutions.
I'll leave you with a quote from Mansour Samadpour, the author of the 1999 DNA study, that unwittingly set off this whole chain of events: "One human with an infection can contaminate an entire beach. It doesn’t take much if the bather has a highly contagious illness. Babies at the beach are like bacteria tea bags." (Source.) Eliminating every last bacterium from the surf zone is an unattainable and unrealistic goal, and huge and dubious infrastructure projects to pump the waste two miles up the coast and dump it into someone else's surf zone are emphatically not a "solution."
I welcome your comments.
posted by Ben Weiss at
10:07 PM
3 Comments:
Gov. Schwarz did NOT veto the grant. Please call State Water Resources Control Board and get the correct information. Clean Beaches Initiative money is still headed for Rincon. Thank you.
Dear anonymous:
Please read what I wrote. I did not say that Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed the grant. I said that he vetoed the bill containing the grant. (Specifically, he vetoed the bill that would appropriate $6.4 million in Prop 84 funds toward CBI projects, $2.1 million of which is targeted for the Rincon sewer project.)
The description of the CBI grant on the State Water Resources Control Board website states:
"The FY 2007/08 Budget Act [SB 1002], upon enactment, appropriates $6.4 million from Proposition 84 to the CBI Grant Program.
State Water Board Funding Commitment for July 2007:
Carpenteria Sanitation District, CBI Grant #601 $ 2,156,750
Funds Remaining for Future Commitments $ 4,243,250"
SB 1002 is the bill that Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed on Oct. 14th. The result is that, unless the Governor changes his mind, or the veto is otherwise overridden, the $6.4 million will not be appropriated, and thus the grant will not be funded, despite its conditional approval by the State Water Board.
If, as you seem to be suggesting, the $6.4 million or $2.1 million is actually coming from a different source, then the Water Board would certainly be well advised to correct their documents and provide that concrete information, rather than leaving Rincon residents hanging in the wind for the past month.
Feel free to respond. Concrete, verifiable facts are welcome.
-Ben
I think that it is important to note Craig Murray's quote (Carpinteria Sanitation District Manager)in the Coastal View News on October 18, 2008: "The state grant money will likely be used to fund some of the project." Note carefully chosen words LIKELY and SOME. Even if this grant is funded, there is NO guarantee that any of the homeowners will ever see this money. This was simply a way to sell this project to the homeowners. The timing of the grant says it all. So go ahead and make all the calls you want to the State Resources Control Board. Carpinteria Sanitation has NO incentive to stay to budget on this project. And when was the last time you remember a government project to come in on or under budget? And more important, when was the last time a public utility gave you a refund? Money still headed for Rincon... There is a lot more money about to head out of Rincon and into the hands of the government, Heal the Ocean, Carpinteria Sanitation and some sewer rat engineers. And guess what? To paraphrase Mr. Murray- this project cannot guarantee an improvement in water quality. Yet CSD is more than happy to take tax payers money to help pay for it from the Clean Beaches Initiative. The State of California and its citizens cannot afford to further support fake environmentalism when there are REAL problems to address.
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