Water deal clears the way for developers 

Robert McDonald was right on in his reference to the movie Chinatown in his story about the unnecessary overabundance of water coming to SLO town (“How dry we’re not,” Jan. 21). Approval of the Nacimiento pipeline was a cleverly manipulated strategy among county and city politicians and pro-growth business entities. Though I explained to our representatives the same facts McDonald reported when the charges were being passed on to the citizens of SLO, to give them an opportunity to act, they instead reacted like Chicken Little, referencing the hundred-year anomaly of the drought of the early 1990s. Now the last obstacle to the aforementioned conspirators is Measure P.

Measure P states any additional water acquired by the city (by tax or rate increases) should be considered a “reliability reserve.” The reason it was worded that way is voters who passed the measure did not want to pay for new development. To circumvent the legal requirement that the amendment could be changed only by voter approval, the city management and council decided to change the meaning of “reliability reserve” before the amendment was approved. Not surprisingly, no one challenged this rewrite, which now will go to the Planning Commission for the “citizen commission stamp of approval.” With virtually no community participation and disinterest by current residents in maintaining our quality of life, this desecration of democracy will continue, unless Robert McDonald wants to play J. J. Gittes.