About Cambria

At the last CCSD meeting , GM Tammy Rudock reported that she had voted “No” on the recent Mosquito Abatement District Assessment on behalf of the District and the properties it owns. She decisded that this was within her authority, since she is authorized to enter into contracts for the District. As to why she voted no for the district: the money wasn’t in the budget to pay it.

This action might not have caught my attention, except that over the last two weeks, I’ve attended four meetings of agencies subject to the Brown Act: the SLO Board of Supervisors, San Miguel Advisory Council, Cambria Community Healthcare District and the Cambria Community Services District. At each of these meetings, the staff brought the issue to Board to vote on, as they seemed to consider it more of a policy issue, rather than a management one. Looking at the agendas for a few other CSDs it was clear they also left the vote to the choice of their Boards.

Since it wasn’t even on the consent calendar, the public had no opportunity to make comment on it and no analysis was provided of what the fiscal impact (or other benefits) would be for the District.  Whether to support or oppose the formation of another department in the county should be a decision for the Board, not the General Manager. It may seem like  I’m nit-picking, but if we continue to ignore these small transgressions, the laws that are intended to limit the powers of our local agency staff and provide for oversight by elected representatives, we begin to slip away from agencies that provide services for the community toward an unaccountable clique controlling the community.

This happened in 1996 at the first meeting of the newly elected Board. It was a standing room only audience at the Vets hall. It was pretty well known around town what was about to happen. Very contentious meeting. There was no reason given but it was well known that he was the “engineer” who took us through the long and expensive design and permitting of the proposed Desalination plant. I don’t think there was a golden parachute for him, he was just fired, period. He was the kindest, most respected and intelligent Manager this town has ever had. The next major action the new Board took was to kill the desal plan, period. And the no growthers won another round. And we still don’t have a drop more water than we had when I moved here 30 years ago. BUT we do have a building moratorium which I am sure makes for a lot of happy no growthers.