Cambria hired Grace Environmental Services (GES) to install new and improved water meters, but with the owner’s muddy past, some residents aren’t so sure it’s a good idea.
At its Jan. 9 meeting, the Cambria Community Services District (CCSD) board approved a contract to hire the water treatment company to install 3,500 water meter parts and advanced metering infrastructure. GES submitted the lowest bid for the project, $217,000.
CCSD General Manager Matthew McElhenie told the board that the district didn’t have the capacity to install the technology and is currently reading 2,000 meters manually. The new technology would save staff time by collecting the data.
“We currently don’t have the staff to do the install ourselves. We are currently at DEFCON 4 with these meters,” he said. “Now we are at a point where our systems are failing faster than we can manually read them.”
But the discussion among the board and public comment focused primarily on GES owner Charles Grace, who has a troubled history in neighboring San Simeon.
In 2014, the San Simeon Community Services District faced a potential complete collapse after its provider of services went bankrupt, leaving the district without any means to continue its operations. Grace stepped in and paid for operator salaries so residents would not lose water or wastewater treatment services.
Eventually GES took on the long-term service provider role for water treatment with Grace acting as the district’s general manager, catching the attention of the SLO County District Attorney’s Office and the Fair Political Practices Commission, which conducted a formal investigation into Grace and GES in 2021.
By 2023, the district attorney announced Grace and GES had violated state conflict of interest laws by participating in creating the contract that made him the district’s acting general manager and his company the district service provider. According to the announcement, GES had agreed it would no longer work with the San Simeon Community Services District.
At the Jan. 9 meeting, CCSD board member Harry Farmer said he has total confidence in GES for this job, adding that Grace wouldn’t be doing the work. GES Regional Manager Steve Orellana would.
“He is the person that will be doing the work. He is a very skilled, very competent, very hardworking individual,” he said. “I give two thumbs up to this particular item.”
Board member Tom Gray said he appreciated Farmer’s comment and noted that the board must go with the lowest, responsible bidder under state law.
“It does also emphasize the fact that a particular individual who is the [owner] of that company is not actually going to be the one actually out there fixing our meters,” he said.
Cambria resident Christine Heinrichs spoke against the hire and urged the board to table its decision.
“I’m a little surprised to hear this discussion not mentioning at all that the contractors who have this low bid have been convicted of violations of the public trust in our neighboring community San Simeon to the extent that he is legally barred by the court from ever working there again,” she said. “I would think that would be an important consideration in whether Cambria is eager to hire this person.”
Resident Christina Galloway shared a similar sentiment but agreed that the board must go with the lowest bidder. However, she urged the board to keep a close eye when “doing business with someone who’s known to be somewhat irresponsible or unethical to some extent and you know for what.”
The board approved awarding the contract to GES 4-1 with board President Debra Scott dissenting.
“The board has made the decision to go forward with the contract. There is nothing more for me to say at this point,” Scott told New Times via email.
Grace told New Times that GES was chosen through a fair and transparent process and noted that the project in Cambria is unrelated to San Simeon and that he and company hope to move forward.
“We intend to perform the project as efficiently and effectively as possible,” he said. Δ
Editor’s Note: This story was updated to clarify that GES agreed it would no longer work with the San Simeon Community Services District, it was not banned.
This article appears in Jan 16-26, 2025.