Rock Publisher Ed Ochs to BOS: ‘You gave Los Osos the most expensive sewer in the country’

    Granted, there is other County business of great importance that requires the attention of this board. However, none involve thousands of people losing their homes, and when they lose their homes, they lose their life savings and everything they put into that home.
    The reasons offered for not keeping this board’s promise to the community simply do not hold up under closer scrutiny or simple rebuttal, and are extremely harmful toward an extraordinarily high percentage of Los Osos residents.
    It should be more than obvious to this entire board, and anyone in the audience here and at home, that the one and only reason why STEP was ruled out was because the County’s predetermined project cannot stand up to a fair, open cost competition, which STEP would have won hands down -- and which would have eliminated insider MWH. That could not be allowed to happen. Dig deeper, Supervisors. STEP had to be stopped. The County couldn’t stand the competition --- because the competition was just too good.
    Granted, Chairman Gibson is a truly professional politician, polished and passionate for what he believes in, but he is still tragically wrong on issues that matter most to the broader population of Los Osos, and you must know that and act on that.
     Never confuse Might with Right. Chairman Gibson is wrong, his reasoning deeply flawed and biased, which is exactly why we need that vital cost comparison … Only in those numbers can the objective truth be found and the dark cloud over this project rolled away.
    I’m not asking you to open the process for one competitor, but to reopen the competition to return that one competitor locked out of the process back to their rightful place in the process, for they are the sole alternative left to protect taxpayers’ interests and the legitimacy of this effort.
    What kind of competition is it when all the competitors have been knocked out of the race, one by one, before they even reach the starting gate? Everyone on this track from the stablehands to the little old lady in her Easter bonnet knows this race is fixed.
    You could have healed the community. It was the moment of truth. You had the power in your hands to deliver on the promise this board made to a whole community, and you squandered it, along with whatever political capital or trust you may have built up in the larger community.
    I am not one of the disillusioned ones today. I knew exactly what was coming and what is coming -- devastating consequences for thousands far beyond any raised here last week, consequences apparently unforeseen by all but one of you.
     You had the chance to give us a project Los Osos could afford so people could keep their homes, but instead gave us the most expensive sewer in the country. President Obama is providing stimulus money to create jobs to keep people in their homes, but you are doing the opposite, using stimulus money as an excuse to tax people out of their homes.
    You have not only let down Los Osos, but also the rest of the County, by showing that you can do the same thing to them that you did to us. It shows them just what kind of board you are. Those that made the mistake of trusting the County are the ones hurting the most right now. Many more will hurt later. I suspect some still have not learned their lesson -- to only trust those who keep their promises and to hold accountable those who don’t.