The San Simeon Community Services District (CSD) selected Patrick Faverty to serve as an acting general manager pending contract and start date negotiations at a June 23 special meeting.
“What we have tonight is an agreement for acting managing duties,” CSD Legal Counsel Nubia Goldstein told the board. “Whoever the board selects will work with the current company—Grace Environmental Services—to ensure day-to-day operations are still being done.”
Faverty will work alongside Grace Environmental Services until the services it provides can be adequately replaced. The CSD board, which is still searching for a director to fill the vacancy left in April by former Director Daniel De La Rosa, can now focus on finding a permanent general manager and operational services.
“[Faverty’s role] is not for an interim or new general manager,” Goldstein said at the meeting. “It is literally for assisting this transition phase.”
Currently, Grace Environmental Services provides services and staff for several operations in San Simeon as the CSD doesn’t have employees of its own—meaning they oversee the bulk of operations for the district’s water and wastewater facilities.
The June 23 vote follows the tumultuous tenure of Grace Environmental Services owner and former CSD General Manager Charles Grace, which culminated with the CSD terminating his role on June 13 after the San Luis Obispo District Attorney’s office and Grace settled a lawsuit alleging conflict of interest.
“The [San Simeon] CSD’s contract with Grace Environmental Services to provide both management and operations is found to create an unlawful financial conflict of interest under the laws of California,” a press release from the DA’s Office read. “The contract provisions placed Mr. Grace and his company in a position to self-deal.”
New Times reached out to the DA’s Office for further clarification on the statements made in the June 12 settlement announcement but had not received a response by press time.
In addition to the initial stipulations, Grace Environmental Services isn’t allowed to seek reimbursement from the CSD for any legal fees associated with the settlement—something that the company has done with past cases.
“The [CSD] had already reimbursed [Grace Environmental Services] over $125,000 in legal expenses as a result of the joint investigation by the DA’s Office and the Fair Political Practices Commission,” the DA’s Office stated. “The FPPC and Charles Grace entered into an agreement in 2021 that included Mr. Grace’s admitting to violating conflict-of-interest law and paying $4,500 in civil penalties.”
As part of the case settlement, the company has to pay $75,000 in civil penalties, be retrained regarding conflict of interest, and not seek further work from the CSD as either the general manager or a service provider.
“Public officials such as city council members, county supervisors, appointed officials—including general managers—must exercise their authority in a way that upholds the public’s trust,” District Attorney Dan Dow wrote in the settlement announcement. “In this case, both parties agreed that this contract created a financial conflict of interest that violates the laws of California.”
This article appears in Jun 29 – Jul 9, 2023.
San Simeon CSD paid a total of $190,000 of Grace’s fancy LA law firm $550-$750/hr legal team fees through June 30, 2022. On top of that is all the money the district paid District Counsel Jeffery Minnery also defending him.
One wonders if all the fancy LA attorneys, and what former Chair Gwen Kellas did to defend him didn’t make it worse for him by doing things like calling Grace an “unnatural person” general manager/government official, changing policies to say he wasn’t responsible for the budget and so much more.