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In the latest stream of sewer-related subterfuge, a confidential e-mail from July 15 is being circulated and re-circulated, implicating minority CSD directors Lisa Schicker and Julie Tacker for violating their oaths of service. The correspondence - between move-the-sewer activist Al Barrow and legal counsel Cynthia Hawley of Parker and Hawley - suggested that Schicker and Tacker would assist Hawley by obtaining confidential information to use as evidence in lawsuits against the State Water Regional Control Board and the Los Osos CSD.
In a tale as convoluted as the Valeria Plame outing incident now known as Rove-gate, the Barrowmail somehow fell into the hands of sewer stalwart Pandora Nash-Karner. Despite a "Confidentiality Notice" at the end of the e-mail, identifying the message as "legally privileged as an attorney-client communication," Nash-Karner proceeded to share the e-mail en masse with an untold number of citizens, politicians, and media groups.
Nash-Karner, publicity chief for Save The Dream, maintains that she didn't violate anything because she was clearly named as a recipient in the e-mail and did not receive it by accident.
As she forwarded this confidential message to a legion of unnamed recipients - in an affair now dubbed Pandora-gate - Nash-Karner clearly accused Schicker and Tacker of committing perjury and violating the public trust by leaking CSD information to attorneys who were actively suing the CSD. A follow up e-mail from Nash-Karner reduced the charge of perjury to simply lying - the difference being that Schicker and Tacker had not been under oath when they denied cooperating with the anti-CSD lawsuit.
Director Schicker has denied leaking any confidential information, claiming she was only acting in the interest of transparent government.
"It is public information," she said, "and I will share it with anyone who wants it, including Pandora."
Meanwhile, Nash-Karner has been mobilizing a letter-writing campaign to local newspapers, providing her supporters with a list of 10 concepts to include in their original letters, focusing on "efforts by Schicker and Tacker to coordinate with litigation."
Nash-Karner's letter also instructs letter writers not to refer to Schicker and Tacker as "women," but as "CSD dissidents... anti-project CSD members, CSD opposition leaders, etc."
Tacker has never denied her status as a woman, but has expressed disapproval for the "anti-sewer" label in favor of the term "pro-choice," on the premise that voters should have a right to choose the location of their sewer.
On that note, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals last Friday - in a sharp reversal of Superior Court Judge Hilton's July 29 decision - ordered that the hotly contested move-the-sewer initiative remain on the Sept. 27 special ballot. A watershed victory for the pro-choice camp, this initiative would give residents a voice on the sewer location.
-J.H.