In response to the July 11 New Times commentary “Negative for Oceano” by former Oceano Community Services District board member Karen White, Ms. White mistakenly claims she is the “immediate past president of the OCSD.” White last served as OCSD board president in November 2022. Board member Linda Austin is the “immediate past president,” having served in that role from December 2022 until January 2024, when Charles Varni was elected to the seat.
White claims that emergency services response times were shorter when the Oceano fire station was in use. White fails to mention that since 2020 while she simultaneously served as OCSD vice president and chair of the Five Cities Fire Authority, the Oceano station was “browned out” (only used part time) due to “staffing shortages.” Emergency crews have been answering calls for Oceano residents from the Arroyo Grande and Grover Beach fire stations for much of the last four years.
With costs of all things on the rise, most of us tighten our belts. The Five Cities Fire Authority board, made up of two council members from the cities of Arroyo Grande and Grover Beach, apparently hasn’t tightened the belt for the FCFA. In January, the FCFA held a retirement party for outgoing Chief Stephen Lieberman. While still employed as the chief, Leiberman invited 50-plus individuals to the party. While Chief Leiberman deserved a retirement party, the FCFA shouldn’t have paid more than $2,000 for it. Ironically, the receipts were in front of the FCFA board (whose members were also invited to the affair) for approval in April, after the party was over, and Chief Leiberman was long gone. At the same meeting where they approved the 2024-25 annual budget. The budget reveals the FCFA, with or without Oceano’s contribution, is underfunded for its intended goals.
As the divestiture concludes, Oceano will lose some of its assets as part of the divestiture, but nothing that wouldn’t go with emergency services anyway. The OCSD’s property tax allocation and Public Facility Fees are earmarked for emergency services. The fire station should go with the service. Once renovated, it will come back online.
As for renting the office space from the county, from a funding standpoint, that space should have been “rented” through fund transfers from water, sewer, lighting, parks and recreation contributions to the upkeep of the building all along.
The sheriff’s station, which the OCSD built and rented to the county, merely switches the responsibility and care for the station to the county. Historically, OCSD used the rental income to pay the debt and maintenance costs. The loss of reserves White refers to are those intended for new flooring in the sheriff’s station. That money was going to go into the building anyway. Now OCSD will do nothing for the county related to that property. The “losses” in the OCSD budget are proportional to the reduction in services.
White points to and blames Charles Varni for the 2020 and 2022 failures of the $180 annual per property fire tax measures for the losses to Oceano. Yet in 2014 the FCFA, with White on the FCFA board, attempted to float an assessment district at $66 per single family home annually; the vote included all three communities and failed miserably. Of the 4,594 ballots cast, a whopping 59.6 percent of those ballots opposed the assessment district, with only 40.3 in support.
Simply put, increasing taxes doesn’t excite anyone. Paying for a retirement party instead of boots and hoses just irks us taxpayers. Δ
Julie Tacker writes to New Times from Los Osos. Email a response for publication to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Aug 1-11, 2024.
What the author neglects to mention is that in this deal with the county, the OCSD will now be paying them rent for the office space they currently occupy in the amount of $90 to $100k per year. In an already unfunded CSD and disadvantaged community this is going to be a hard hit. The county is going to take multiple properties in order to make up the difference for the cost of fire service and as well as the rent income for the OCSD office, so they are really coming out on top, not Oceano or the people who live here. While yes, the community of Oceano are able to still have fire/emergency service, it is not comparable to the service the district used to receive even when the Oceano station was on a brown out. I personally have seen the fire/emergency response take at least 10 or more minutes currently and I leave on the east side of Oceano close to Halcyon rd. I think that this whole article is not even about the fire service for Oceano but the fact the Ms. Tacker is upset about the retirement party for the past FCFA Chief.
The article DOES speak to paying rent for OCSD offices, (paragraph 5) “As for renting the office space from the county, from a funding standpoint, that space should have been “rented” through fund transfers from water, sewer, lighting, parks and recreation contributions to the upkeep of the building all along.” You must have missed it. This would have been proper governmental accounting.
Yes, I am upset about a publicly funded retirement party. And you should be too! The funds (fractionally} for the party came from OCSD. Yet OCSD Board members or their staff were NOT invited to the party. The only representatives from OCSD that were invited to enjoy a free lunch were past board member, Karen White and the past GM, Will Clemens.
FCFA billed the expenses to their Public Relations line item in their budget. How did this retirement party benefit the public? Again, that money would have been better spent on something that actually benefits the public — as exampled “boots and hoses.”