Nothing to see here! That’s the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office’s tactic when it comes to the recent settlement it reached with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) over a more than six-year-long civil rights investigation into jail conditions.
The report from the DOJ outlines several steps the jail needs to take to improve things for inmates, so it doesn’t violate the Eighth and 14th Amendments or the Americans with Disabilities Act. But the Sheriff’s Office disagrees with the findings that eventually led to the January settlement.
“The Sheriff’s Office voiced numerous concerns regarding factual inaccuracies, investigation methodology, and conclusions,” spokesperson Tony Cipolla said. “Allegations of constitutional violations are inherently subjective.”
I guess if you’re the one whose rights are being violated, you’re more likely to believe it than if you’re the one who’s doing the violating. Maybe that’s the kind of subjectivity he’s talking about?
For instance, if you’re Andrew Holland who was tied to a restraint chair for almost two full days, you might believe that it’s a clear violation of your constitutional right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. But if you’re the deputies who were laughing as he died on the jail cell floor after being untied from the chair, maybe you think it’s A-OK. Subjective, amirite?
A $5 million settlement between the county and Holland’s family would say otherwise. After all, it is the incident that kicked off this entire investigation in the first place. But luckily for inmates, the Sheriff’s Office doesn’t use restraint chairs anymore. Phew.
“Although the Sheriff’s Office strongly maintains that it has never systematically violated the constitutional rights of incarcerated people, the settlement agreement is largely reflective of what the department is already doing,” he said.
See! Nothing to see here.
The DOJ disagrees, obviously.
While the Sheriff’s Office has taken some steps to address its issues, according to DOJ Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, “there is still more that must be done to achieve constitutional compliance.”
For instance, the DOJ believes that medical staff overlook concerns made via sick call slips. An administrator from SLO County’s contracted health care provider, Wellpath, supposedly gave a presentation implying that grievances from inmates were a “nuisance to staff.” Oh, not good! The national jail health care company filed for bankruptcy in November, so I’m not sure what that means for us here—but that’s a different story. Also, not good.
You know what else isn’t good? Vistra‘s battery energy storage systems, apparently. It’s not that the systems don’t store energy—they do. It’s that those systems seem to cause fires that are hard to put out. The energy company that wants to plop a battery plant down in Morro Bay had some fire problems at a very similar facility in Moss Landing, where there was a fire for four days.
Monterey County 2nd District Supervisor Glenn Church called the Moss Landing fire the “worst case scenario.” It was the third fire the facility’s had since it was built. He also said no one predicted that it would happen—but it does seem like it’s becoming more and more predictable that a fire will happen at a battery storage facility.
Echoing the problems that Escondido firefighters had putting a fire out at a battery storage facility in September and Otay Mesa had in May, everyone thought the fire was out, but then it flared back up. It’s best to let the batteries burn, firefighters said, because introducing water to the situation can get messy. The Otay Mesa battery fire burned for two weeks!
In Moss Landing, more than 1,200 people were evacuated from their homes, and Morro Bay is thanking its lucky stacks that Vistra paused its application.
All of the concerns that residents have voiced for the last few years are now being echoed by elected officials—including Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay), who was on the Morro Bay City Council when the 600-megawatt project was initially proposed.
“Unless we can guarantee the safety of our communities, we’re going to need to think about this differently,” she told New Times on Jan. 17, the day everyone thought the fire was going to burn itself out.
By Jan. 20, after the fire had flared up again, Addis had hardened her stance.
She called on Vistra to end its plans in Morro Bay and asked the California Energy Commission and California Coastal Commission to reject the application.
“We can never have a disaster like this again. We all deserve solutions that prioritize safety and sustainability,” she said.
Solutions seem to be easy to come up with when push comes to shove. In the San Luis Coastal Unified School District, parents shoved and came out on top. The district, which is in a budget pickle, was considering nixing its transitional kindergarten program.
After parents pushed back, the district decided that it could keep the program after all. Now it just needs to find another place or 70 it can cut to pull $8.7 million out of the budget—thanks to PG&E‘s Diablo Canyon Power Plant shenanigans, among other things.
It’s not paying as much in property taxes as it used to because it was going to shutter. And now it’s looking at the potential of a 30-year extension.
So when do the property taxes increase again? Δ
The Shredder is solutions-oriented. Send problems to shredder@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Jan 23 – Feb 2, 2025.