STEP vs. SLO County: The Case for Civil Fraud and Concealment

By Aaron, on July 22nd, 2010%

When does product disparagement become an issue of fraud? At what point does the community of Los Osos become a victim of fraud? Razor Online continues our special “STEP vs. SLO County” series, documenting how honesty and fairness got lost in the sewer shuffle.

Previously, Razor Online discussed the potential case against San Luis Obispo County for product disparagement of the STEP collection system, which for two years was an integral part of the County’s design-build process — until April 7, 2009, when STEP was dropped without a plausible explanation and any chance of a true design-build process crumbled into failure. If what Orenco Systems’ Bill Cagle wrote in a letter to Chairman Frank Mecham on May 28, 2010 is accurate, and it appears to me that it certainly is, then the County’s Los Osos wastewater project team has intentionally and purposefully misrepresented STEP technology to the benefit of County coffers, MWH and County-friendly contractors and consultants.

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Los Osos Sewer: Environmental Achievement – or Disaster?

By Aaron, on July 15th, 2010%

By ED OCHS

Sierra Club’s Andrew Christie is probably the single most influential voice speaking out on the environmental pitfalls and pratfalls of the County’s ill-conceived Los Osos sewer project. In “The Lessons of Los Osos,” Christie’s excellent summary of — as he sees it — the last major chapter in the 30-year Los Osos sewer saga, published in the July/August edition of the Santa Lucian newsletter, he chronicles the many achievements (and one notable failure) of the Sierra Club, SLO Green Build, Surfrider, Los Osos Sustainability Group and local activists in their combined efforts to substantially reshape the County’s predetermined project for Los Osos, which recently received a Coastal Development Permit from the California Coastal Commission.

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