Will Osos PZ Residents Vote to Give County a ‘Blank Check’?

The County’s project will exceed $275 a month per homeowner and drive thousands out of town. Passing the vote would allow the County to begin levying assessments in December 2008.

LOS OSOS —  Thirty years of “Sewer Wars.” Millions of dollars in plans gone up in smoke, million in fines raining down on unsuspecting residents along with a cloudburst of CDOs. Decades of politics and PR, secrets, lies and videotape.

That may be on the minds of some Los Ososians, but there will be no mention of it or room for it in the two small boxes on the mail-in Proposition 218 ballot the County is sending to “Prohibition Zone” homeowners in late August-early September.

Though shadows of the past will always fall on everything that happens in Los Osos, which box voters decide to mark really has nothing to do with what happened in the past. What is at stake with the Prop 218 vote is more immediate: every homeowners ability to afford to live in the Los Osos of the near future, starting one or two years from now.

Next to the first box it reads: YES, I SUPPORT the levying of the proposed assessment upon parcels for the Los Osos Wastewater Project.

Next to second box it reads: NO, I am OPPOSED to the levying of the proposed assessment upon parcels for the Los Osos Wastewater Project.  

The boxes may be small but the vote doesn’t get any bigger. It is the most critical vote in the history of Los Osos because of the life-changing impact the vote will have on so many residents. The results will likely determine who goes and who stays—who can afford to live in Los Osos and who can’t. The picture already looks bleak. The County is projecting a monthly expense to homeowners of between $275 and $300. And that’s just for openers. The actual assessments—small at first—may begin to appear on homeowners’ property tax statements as early as December of next year.

As profound as the vote is, all that can be written with some degree of certainty at this point is that the vote will answer some questions, delay or bury others, as well as create a whole new set of problems that spawn a new set of questions. Among the more interesting questions that might get answered with the vote…

• Are people just so tired of the sewer saga that they will vote “Yes” to give the County a blank check to build any sewer, anywhere, no matter what the cost to them?
• How many homeowners will actually vote realizing what’s at stake here for them and their families?

Among the new questions that may be an answered, unfortunately, when it’s too late…

• What is the County NOT telling homeowners about the cost of the sewer that will NOT appear on the 218 ballots (lateral hookups, bimonthly fees for rates and charges)?
• How difficult will it be for homeowners to come up with thousands of dollars more on their property tax bills—in a lump sum—on top of bimonthly fees and charges, starting in December 2008?

At the end of the day, the only thing worse than voting without knowing what you are voting for or against is not voting at all. If residents can’t manage to take a position on whether or not they want to be taxed the maximum amount for an unknown project, then residents are, knowingly or unknowingly, trusting their future and the fate of their families and neighbors to the County and the State.   

So just vote.

You can’t cram 30 years of sewer wars into two small boxes, but there is just enough room in one of the boxes to place the most important X of your life.