Patsy Marshall (Buena Park budget crises, wants more audit),
Brian Brady (sticking to one-year-only 15% increase),
Steve Anderson (French company getting GWRS money),
Cavecche (over-fearful of the whacko right wingers in Orange).

As in the Sacramento quagmire, these 9 votes were just enough to torpedo the rate increase proposal before the board, since a 2/3 majority -- 17 -- is needed to pass budget items.

Just as in Sacramento, also, you have to look beyond looney-tunes positions beloved of Greenhut and the OCRegister. The Capital Improvement (C.I.P.) Budget has been developed over many years, and the need for upgrading end-of-service-life infrastructure is evident to all. The hypocracy of the Register, which depends on high property values, was disgusting but unfortunately in character.

We in the General Public know full well that some of those projects are wrong-headed, and that it will turn out that the GWRS, for example, may not have chosen the most cost-effective path to water reclamation. But that's the way government works, there is always waste, and kvetching about "path best taken" after the fact is little help. The decision has to be made in the real world based on the best information you can ferret out -- that's why it's a tough job.

Egoism of the Register's ilk aside, now that our duly constituted officials have chosen this C.I.P. path, it MUST BE PAID FOR. It is not smart to argue substance when OCSD is arguing ancillary issues. As the medieval legal axiom says, "if you will the end [C.I.P. upgrades, in this case] you will the means [i.e., you must pay for it]".

Hence, the ideas promulgated by Greenhut and the OCRegister seemed ludicrous, to some, since they were complaining about issues that have little to do with the necessity of coming up with the cash.

If the nine dissenters had stood their ground, and stonewalled funding, OCSD would be up against the deadline for putting the fee increase on the tax bill this year. Moreover, at the end of the issue, we are in the same boat -- got to come up with the money.

At the suggestion of Tod Ridgeway of Newport Beach, the motion before the Board was amended to require a 2/3 reaffirmantion each year, and a suggestion of a re-examination of projects and cost structures. This is a good idea, but really, no one goes into those line items and really audits the budget. No one on the Board has the time, of course, and anyone who does have the time is in on the staff negotiations and is not going to dredge it up again.

In practice, the machinery of the budget is going to be opaque to the Board, despite all good intentions; and, one is reminded of Disraeli's injunction, "If you wish to enjoy the sausage, don't inquire too closely into how it is produced...". Meaning, in the case of OCSD and other such government agencies, if you want to see them do even a semblance of what we expect, you must put up with some inefficient methods and, sometimes, outrageous roundabout methods.

For example, the GWRS is predicated on the model of a sewage district that had the right to dump primary sewage. It was created when the waiver was in force. Such dischargers (there were 4 in CA) start off on the wrong foot when they think about reclamantion. They divide the wastewater stream into two branches, one that gets only cursory super-primary or blended treatment; and the other branch that gets several levels of treatment to get to the "potable" standard. This is inherently inefficient; it has been found, everywhere else, to be more efficient to build plant to treat ALL the water to the secondary level, and then divide the stream.

So in a way, the setup for the GWRS may turn out to be founded on a configuration that will need significant modifications; and, when you lay a foundation, it is expensive to go back and re-do it. Steve Anderson, long ago, mentioned this point. Moreover, the choice of methods for GWRS may turn out to have been less efficient,
and, in hindsight, OCSD will see better ways that it should have been done. But this has nothing to do with the motion before the Board, these issues should have been examined when the C.I.P. was defined.

Brian Brady, representing the Irvine Ranch Water District, with the ever-watchful Joan Irvine Smith sitting directly behind him, was able to accept the amended motion as meeting his concerns, and his vote was the needed 17th vote to put this issue behind OCSD.

The budget increase of 15% per year for 5 years was approved on this, its second reading.

The amended motion really just re-affirmed the right of the Board, should it have the inclination, to cut the budget down in successive years. Most likely, just as with the General Public, they are not going to inquire too closely into the details of sewage processing, so long as the end result is savory.

/Doug

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