1684: Number of returns prepared last year by United Way Monterey County’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance

Thursday, February 21, 2013

IN ONE EAR… Squid watched in amusement as Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control Agency board members bickered at their Feb. 11 meeting. At issue: whether the Peninsula should get a crack at some of the recycled water Salinas Valley growers lay claim to. They finally ended a funding stalemate by green-lighting the $750,000 enviro review, but it came without a compromise between growers and the PCA on who owns that wastewater. That ticked off County Supe Lou Calcagno. 

Monterey City Councilwoman Libby Downey pleaded for civility. “Mr. Supervisor,” she asked, “will you sit down with me, if I come over to your office and go over it? 

Calcagno extended what could’ve been a good-faith gesture, but since he interrupted Downey to say it, it came across as condescending. “Any time, Libby,” he said. “I’ll even have donuts and coffee.” 

A food with a hole in the middle seemed fitting; later in the PCA meeting, Lou wiggled out of recusing himself for a conflict of interest. (As a dairyman, he taps into that recycled water for irrigation.) “I’m not gonna pay an attorney $5,000 to determine if I’ve got a conflict,” he said. “I’ve analyzed it in my own mind, and I’m comfortable with it.” 

Lucky for Calcagno, PCA attorney Rob Wellington wasn’t willing to give him advice, considering he didn’t plan on listening anyway. 

PAST DUES… Speaking of the lettuce curtain, Squid enjoys oozing over to Salinas to bond with the ghost of John Steinbeck. His presence is especially strong in Oldtown, home of the National Steinbeck Center. But the trek has gotten dismal lately; in the past three months, at least a half-dozen Oldtown businesses have pulled the plug. That has locals wondering what the Oldtown Salinas Association (the special assessment district that collects dues from its businesses) can do. More marketing? More recruiting? More of everything means the little organization needs more money. 

Maybe it should start by collecting on the small-claims suit the city of Salinas filed against the OSA’s executive director, Brian Higgins.  

In 2009, Higgins (a political operative who favors the conservative side) launched a business called Bayground. The active lifestyle group for young professionals never got past a landing page on the Internet, but since Higgins registered Bayground’s address as 213 Main St. (the former Republican Party headquarters), he was required to pay dues.  

Which, according to the suit, he failed to do three years in a row, for a total of 900 smackeroos. 

The city filed suit in August. The OSA board hired Higgins in October. Someone should have asked, “Do you owe OSA any money?” Trial is set for April 13.

 Interesting observation of the MRWPCA meeting of the 11th. I read Collins's latest letter regarding recycled water, dated Feb. 13, and it is masterful. 10 pages of public document attachments, including the Federal Biological Opinion, Water Quality Control Board documents and County documents. The very same water the MRWPCA wants to ship to the Peninsula for human consumption, has been deemed harmful to produce. 
 Here are a few of the choice items currently residing in this source water:

The highest Fecal Coliform count in the Central Coast region;
A reservoir of DDT that will continue to release well into the 21st Century;
Nitrates, Priority Organics, Pesticides, Heavy Metals (including Arsenic) and Ammonia. The Regional Water Quality Control Board finds the Salinas Valley in violation of the following water quality standards:
Violations of drinking water standards for nitrates;
Violations of the Basin Plan general toxicity objectives for inland surface waters and estuaries;
Violations of the Basin Plan narrative general objective for biostimulatory substances. Pardon me for bluntness, but are you "freaking" kidding me, as my granddaughter would say. You can not irrigate a crop for human consumption with this treated water but you put it into a household in Monterey or Seaside? Does the technology even exist to completely remove DDT from drinking water? At what cost? Why are we not just building the desal plant? Collins is simply reporting the data that exists on the public record, and the community has already spent millions proving this water is not worth a crap, now we want to spend $750,000 to prove it again? Madness.....

Hi, oldguy49..You should have been a carpenter in your early days because once again you hit the nail right on the head regarding water quality...Pure BS and the $750,000...But, there is another little aspect that needs to be addressed regarding the Reclamation Ditch..A while back, someone discovered a Steelhead in that ditch, (endangered), and I'm sure the environmentalists, Fish and Game and gosh knows who else would be asking for a full blown EIR to pull any water out of that ditch..That would even cost more money and time, and on , and on, and on, and blah, blah, blah....

 I read Collins subsequent mail regarding the Regional Project EIR, wherein the MRWPCA proposal for recycling chemically laden waters was rejected, in 2009. The Supervisors challenged him on his information so he provides the EIR data, references to the California Department of Public Health findings and a Cornell University study, regarding DDT in drinking water. The truth is a powerful tool, and third party independent cooraberation is even better. 
Can there be any justification, that someone can explain to me, that explains the spending of $750,000 on a study that has already been done and rejected by the MRWPCA Board in March, 2009? If you have this money burning a hole in your pocket, give it to the Food Bank of Monterey County.
 Every time the County of Monterey challenges Collins' knowledge of water issues, he provides hard data that proves they do not have a clue!!!! I thought his reference to the County and Mr. Bean with his butterfly net chasing the elusive butterfly was priceless. The only problem that I have is the County's ineptitude and insistence on backing Cal Am, in the face of all logic to the contrary is going to cost me and every other resident of the Peninsula in the long run. How can any reasonable person plan without contingencies?
 At least I understand why they hired him, in 2010, in the first place, he seems to have a first rate knowledge of what he is doing, and by damn, actually accomplished something.

 I showed my prior message to my son, and he tells me the County official who challenged Collins' assertions was none other than that paragon of truth and well spoken knowledge, Lou Calcagno. Now this is simply not fair; Collins knowledge versus Calcagno?? This is analagous to Muhammid Ali versus Popeye, the Sailorman, without his spinach, in a prize fight. There is only one reasonable explanation for Mr. Calcagno's obvious desire to verbally spar with Collins. The seepage of cow dung, Arsenic, DDT and "Infectious Pernicious Irvgrantitis" bud spores into his well drinking water. This can render one completely oblivious to the truth, blind ones ability to reason logically (may not be the cause in Calcagno's case), cause one to have a bloated sense of self worth and block all hope of cognitive reasoning, assuming one has these abilities in the first place. If not, it just renders one a pious windbag, who pontificates without a clue.

 Has anyone heard the latest status of the $750K debacle? Maybe I am missing something, seems to have gone underground.

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Squid Fry 02.21.13