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Which Way’s North?

by Director James G. Barrett

My personal moral philosophy revolves around a modified version of the Golden Rule.  The Golden Rule, which is to “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” has an implied inference that regardless of what another person has done to me, I am still bound by the Rule to nevertheless reciprocate in a Golden fashion.  To me though, and despite any of the turn the other cheek metaphors (forgive me Jesus), all bets are off in regards to my future interactions with that person; the proper metaphor in this situation is certainly the one about reaping what you sow. 

Certain subcomponents of the Golden Rule such as honesty, trust, and honor are at the top of my list when determining a sound moral course of action to take in a particular situation.  A recent example of how I employed these high priority ethical concerns, takes us on a recently completed journey of mine that had me fighting on the moral battlefield for over three years, with a corrupt governmental agency as my adversary.  To me, honor is the top priority in any conflict, whether it be physical of philosophical, and in this particular journey, mine was being constantly challenged and impugned.  

The instant case had me stuck between the financial needs of my voting constituents and the rights of property owners that owned vacant subdivided lots in my district whom wanted to develop their property.  The Board of Directors of the Community Services District that I sat on had imposed in the year prior to my election to that office, a developer impact fee on those non-voting property owners of $1,000 per lot for street lighting and fire protection, payable at the time that those owners would approach the Board’s Architectural Committee seeking approval of the building design.   From my first day in office I was trying to find ways of improving the district’s park system.  While I was doing some of my own legal research on how to properly formulate an ordinance to collect developer fees for parks and recreation, I discovered that there seemed to be something just not right with the method, or the authority that the Board had used to impose the street lighting and fire protection developer fee in the first place.

This brought me to a crossroads where I had to decide if I wanted to be honest and upfront about my concerns, or to just lay low and allow the district to keep adding to the developer fee coffers which up to that point had amassed to over $450,000 in collected fees.  The obvious choice came easy for me, naive as I may have been for a junior Director; just have the General Manager ask the district’s legal counsel for an opinion.  Boy was I shocked at the reactions that that triggered in the other four directors, the most common one being, “But we need the money!”  Regardless of their disapproval I politely and civilly pressed the issue until the other directors and the General Manager finally agreed, after almost three weeks passed, to ask for an opinion.

When the factually conclusive opinion came back from our legal counsel it was clear that Community Services Districts weren’t allowed to collect any developer fees at all because they had not been granted such land use authority by the State Legislature.  “Ok, we’ll just tell the people that we made a mistake,” I thought, “and then we’ll set up a mechanism to pay back the money that we inadvertently charged them.”  Contrary to my dimming naivety, the other directors had anything but that on their minds as they spent the next month, and taxpayer money, on having the attorney find a way of “renaming” the illegally collected fee so that the district could still keep it. 

That is when, as a matter of upholding the trust that the people bestowed upon me to uphold the laws of the State of California, I took the kid gloves off and prepared for battle.  My integrity was now at stake, and I was damned if I was going to let any two-bit hayseed politician jeopardize it by expecting me to turn my back on the truth, simply because it would be the politically prudent thing to do in just sweeping the whole issue under the rug like the district had been trying to do the whole time.  Up to this point my senses of honesty, trust, and integrity had remained intact, and over the next thirty plus months I fought to keep them that way.  Though taking a lot of personal and political heat for my choice of fighting for what was clearly the moral and ethical thing to do, that being paying the damn money back, I was still able to keep those values intact.

It took a span of almost three years for the district to process the steady stream of over $400,000 worth of refund applications that flowed in before everything was all said and done.  During that period the district threw up obstacle after obstacle to try to thwart my attempts of ensuring that the people had been informed of the money owed to them and to give them a fair opportunity to request a refund of it.  This is where my fourth top-four moral principle comes in; persistency.  Whether it is in the victory of achieving a desired goal, or in just retaining one’s principles through a physical defeat, persistency pays countless dividends to one’s moral bank account, an accounting of which will not come until you know when.

Channel Maintenance Fee

to be Waved this Year

by Charles Mayhew

After over two years of constant pressure from Director James G. Barrett, the SCSD Board of Directors decided not to collect the annual Channel Maintenance Fee this year.  This decision was the culmination of Director Barrett’s vigilant efforts to halt the district from overcharging channel maintenance property owners over $200,000 over the last 30 years.

However, by determining that the district has barely spent $2,000 of the over $500,000 that has accrued in the channel maintenance account so far, the door is open for the district to confiscate the remaining funds for use by the General Fund.   Director Robert Butler has repeatedly stated that he will not vote to spend any money on maintaining the channels.  He has also stated that the district could capture funds if the board decides that they are no longer needed for the purpose in which they were collected.  Director Butler has a long documented record of approving the frivolous spending of money on purposes other than what it was collected for.

The decision at the July 21^st, 2009 board meeting does not make it clear if the fee will be charged next year or what should be done with the half a million dollars that currently sits in the account.

Director Barrett’s position is well known, he believes that the collected fees should be returned to the owners of the assessed parcels because no maintenance has been, or will be done, on the channels.  He further argues that, because the current board and past boards have never made the required annual findings that are mandated in the channel maintenance contract, that most of the fees were illegally collected.

Director Barrett explains further, that the Channel Maintenance Fee is the result of a contract between the district and all of the channel maintenance property owners.  Because of the districts annual overcharges and failures to make the required findings, or to do maintenance on the channels, he believes that the contract is being breached every year by the district, and that the people should get their money back.

The districts’ legal counsel stated that he will not research these channel maintenance issues unless the board directs him to do so.  The Board has yet to do so.  Meanwhile the General Fund has been siphoning thousands of dollars a year in earned interest from the Channel Maintenance Fund to pay for office overhead.  In all practicality the only office overhead that is being utilized is when the General Fund does the paperwork to skim 33% of the annual earned interest; government at its’ finest.

SCSD Board Conspires to Commit Fraud

by Charles Mayhew

Despite having no legal authority to do so the SCSD Board of Directors and General Manager Thomas Cannell have positioned themselves to commit a theft by deception on 1,834 property owners in the district to a tune of almost $40,000.

Director James G. Barrett has made every attempt to thwart this illegal activity but has been outnumbered by the other four directors that appear to think that the districts need for this money outweighs the rule of law for this rouge governmental agency.

At the May 19^th, 2009 Board Meeting Directors Palmer, Butler, Neal, President Medders, and district legal counsel Robert Patterson of BB&K sat stoically by as Director Barrett read a motion to repeal Board Resolution 87-3, via Resolution 2009-05-02, which the General Manager has been using to collect a $21/year Standby Fee on unsewered lots for over 20 years.  This charge appears on the yearly Imperial County Property Tax Bill, and has led to the imposition of more than $700,000 in fraudulent Standby Fee Assessments since 1987. 

Under Section 5471 of the Health and Safety Code, Section 54984.1 of the Uniform Standby Charge Procedures Act, Section 61124 of the Government Code as well as Section 4 of Article 13D of the Constitution of the State of California this is not allowed.

This fact has been reiterated to the Board recently through a district commissioned  engineering study on Sewer Standby Charges that stated, “The CSD (per governing statutes) may only charge those parcels which receive special benefit from the repairs, replacements and maintenance of the sewer systems.  Therefore, only vacant parcels which have access to the sewer system at this time will be assessed for those system facilities and maintenance items that provide special benefit to the properties.”

This engineering study by the firm of Koppel & Gruber was ordered by the Board of Directors, at a cost of almost $25,000, for the purpose of imposing an additional $10/year standby fee on properties within the district that are undeveloped but have sewer immediately available to them at this time. 

The four rouge directors, through their refusal to repeal a board resolution that they know  is illegal, have in effect conspired to approve a resolution at the June board meeting that will once again impose this fraudulent fee on these 1,834 properties for the tax year beginning July 1^st, 2009. 

Additionally, General Manager Thomas Cannell’s knowledge of this illegal behavior makes him culpable in this tort as he is the person that is ultimately responsible for forwarding the Sewer Standby Fee Assessment Request to the County of Imperial Tax Collector for it’s placement on the Tax Roll. 

Ignorance of the law can not be used as a defense by the these charlatans as the public record clearly shows that they have been thoroughly educated on the matter through the engineers report as well as the back-up material for the Resolution 2009-05-02 agenda item.

SECTIONS

And the Winner is...

SCSD Director

Bob

"der Fuhrer"

Butler

Salton Sea West's

2009

Turd

Of The Year

NOTICE

Coming in 2010!

See the Secret District Documents That They Don't Want You to See!

In early 2010  outgoing Director James Barrett will be releasing to the public, Government Documents that the District will no doubt try to prevent you from seeing.

Stay tuned for more details

EVENTS

Golf, Golf, Golf

Golf Park Update

At the May 19th, 2009 SCSD Board meeting the board voted to take water service at the Golf Course out of the districts name on June 1st.  The Board did however give the Golf Club the option of putting the water meter in their name until the districts golf course land lease with IID runs out in October of 2009.

The Board also gave the Golf Club its' 30 day notice that the districts $700/month maintenance agreement with them will terminate on July 1st.

At the March 2009 Monthly Meeting of the SCSD Board of Directors a motion was passed which will allow the expiring land lease with the Imperial Irrigation District to expire. 

What this means is that after October of 2009 the district will no longer have use of the IID owned lands upon which the Golf Park, Nature Trail, Salton City Dry Camp, and Johnson's Landing are located. 

This will not effect the Boat Launch or the eastern third of the public parking area as this is land that the district leases under a separate contract with the Bureau of Land Management.

Word has it that a local developer is in negotiations with IID to acquire its own lease of the Johnson's Landing properties and to expand the occupancy size of the RV Park located there.  How this expansion will affect the current residents of the park is unclear.  And since the park is a "temporary occupancy" park, the residents are not protected by certain State Laws concerning evictions from Mobile Home Parks.

Fire Department Buys Brush Truck

On September 4th, 2007    the SCSD Volunteer Fire Department took delivery of a Brand New "Brush Truck" that will be utilized to fight fires in off-road areas that are inaccessible by normal Fire Engines.

The cost of this truck was approximately  $53,000. The  United States Department of Agriculture donated $30,000 to the cause and $20,000 was utilized from the 2007/08 Fire Department Budget that was previously allocated for vehicle acquisition The other $3,000 came from a capital reserve account that was established a few years back from the sale of Borrego Springs Bank stock.  There is currently around $55,000 left of the General Funds' portion of  that stock sale.

Thanks again to all the Volunteer Firefighters for your time and devotion to a truly noble cause! (more)

More to Follow!

Every Drop Counts

Protest Held

by Torri Barrett

January 1^st, 2008 was the first day of many more to come for the Every Drop Counts Protest founded by Mr. Rick Davis of Salton City.  Mr. Davis wants to let Sacramento know that the people of Southern California don’t approve of the State’s plan to dry up almost 60% of the Salton Sea. 

The State’s “preferred plan” is to make a small saline lake at the north end of the current sea and a salt marsh at the south end, drying up everything in the middle. This would leave the residents of all of the communities surrounding the Sea victims to what ever has been dumped into the Sea over the last 100 years as the winds would kick up the dry lake bottom thus polluting the air with all manners of substances including selenium a highly toxic substance.

At 11am sharp over 100 concerned residents poured 100 gallons of clean water into the dying sea to protest the States inaction and empty promises.  Petition gatherers also passed out petitions demanding that the Lawmakers restore the Sea ASAP. 

Mr. Davis a long time resident of the area started the idea that Every Drop Counts when it became obvious to him and many others that the politicians in the rest of the State don’t care about this dying ecosystem that is so vital to so many species of migrating birds as well as its’ human inhabitants.  

Every Sunday Mr. Davis will be pouring 7 gallons of fresh water into the sea.

Click to see photos 

NEW WEBSITE FEATURES!

Director Agenda Packets-

Have you ever wondered what backup information is used by Directors when they  vote on an agenda item?  Well wonder no more!  As a courtesy to the public, Salton Sea West will be posting EVERYTHING that  Directors see in their Agenda Packets online, FREE!

Click here to see all of September 15th's info

Did You Know? -  

Short, Sweet and to the Point Blurbs about District Shenanigans Click to View

Quotes of Note- They said what?!

Read and HEAR for yourself the latest quotes from around the district

Click here for  the latest sound bites

Approved Budget for 2009-2010

Click here

(Note: Six days after the SCSD Board approved this budget, The State announced that it would be borrowing 8% of the districts 2009-10 taxes. This amounts to about $24,000 less in General Fund revenue, resulting in a General Fund deficit of approximately $23,500.)

"Statement of Economic Interests"

Directors Form 700- 

Click here

Approved Budget for 2008-2009

Click here

2006-2007 SCSD Audit 

Click here

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