Cleaning Up Rincon Point? Pt. 3

[UPDATE]: I've finally heard back from Laura Peters at the State Water Board. In reference to the SB [1002] citation in the State Water Board's documents, she says:

"...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.