The Oceano Community Services District (OCSD) is upset with San Luis Obispo County after it requested help to maintain the new Oceano Plaza, even though it’s not one of the district’s core responsibilities.
“I’ve been talking for two years about sticking to our core functions: water, sewer, garbage, lighting, parking,” OCSD board member Shirley Gibson said during the Nov. 13 board meeting. “But here we are discussing a project that is not the responsibility of the district.”
The plaza, built at 17th Street and Beach Street, was constructed by Caltrans within the county’s right of way, making the county Public Works Department responsible for construction and maintenance of those public facilities, according to a Nov. 13 staff report.
“Commonly referred to as roadways, curbs, gutters, and sidewalks, the public right of way is a public easement that allows for public travel and refers to an area where streets and sidewalks are located and are controlled by a public entity,” the staff report states.
While OCSD General Manager Peter Brown said the county is responsible for owning and maintaining the Oceano Plaza, it wants the OCSD to help with “regular maintenance, landscaping, upkeep, irrigation, those types of things.”
But the district doesn’t have funding to spend on plaza upkeep.
“Unlike the county’s access to general fund revenue, OCSD doesn’t have a dedicated funding stream for such activities and cannot use utility enterprise funds for providing services outside of the areas they are collected for,” the staff report states. “Thirdly, maintenance staff job descriptions are specific to authorized CSD services. There does not currently exist a mechanism for cost recovery for OCSD staff expenditures if resources and staff time are to be spent on maintenance activities.”
The plaza also has another problem the district and the county can’t afford to deal with: finishing electrical work that will cost thousands of dollars.
According to staff, the plaza needs electricity to facilitate future public events and needs an on-site electrical supply. Caltrans plumbed conduit at the plaza for future uses, but it needs a meter.
“The electrician informed us that a new PG&E meter installation takes six to 12 months, and that cost, plus the other electrical build-out work are estimated at around $15,000 to $20,000,” the staff report states. “The county, nor OCSD have a funding source that can be used for this.”
Julie Tacker, a Los Osos resident who often attends OCSD board meetings, speculated that the board asks staff to do things outside of their scope of work, such as plaza maintenance, then employees contracts might need to be renegotiated, which could trigger salary increases that the CSD is “just not set up for.”
Almost all the OCSD board members agreed that it’s an unfair thing for the county to, with board member Allene Villa reiterating that it wasn’t the district’s responsibility.
“It’s the right of way of the county, and for them to put it on us, the disadvantaged community, seems very unfair,” she said. “I think that supervisors should get their heads together and think of a way for us to get lighting so that something is done here for Oceano.”
Board member Linda Austin compared Oceano’s new plaza to Avila Beach’s plaza, which the county maintains through its parks department.
“Why do they think we need to maintain this one? Why can’t they do that? If they say they don’t have the money, well they can find the money,” Austin said. “They find it for other areas. There’s a lot of things that have gone in other unincorporated areas of the county, so I think our supervisors should get involved and do something for this community.”
Brown said he would take the board’s concerns back to the county. Δ
This article appears in Holiday Guide 2024.
