BY GUEST COLUMNIST MICHAEL CEREMELLO

FORMER COUNCILMAN AND VICE MAYOR OF THE CITY OF DIXON, CALIFORNIA

NOTE BY www.crescentcitytimes.com EDITOR, DONNA WESTFALL.  I LOVE THE WAY THIS MAN WRITES.  I’M GOING TO HIGHLIGHT EVERYTHING IN THIS ARTICLE IN RED FOR CLARIFICATION JUST SO YOU CAN SEE THE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN OUR CITY AND THE CITY OF DIXON

Your mayor (Mayor of Dixon) is a compulsive and addicted liar.  A fool who must have his way at all costs.  Don’t believe me?  Go to the city’s website and watch the video of last Tuesday night’s meeting.  Go to item 12.2 specifically and see for yourself.  Joseph Goebbels would be so proud.  “If you tell a lie often enough, it will become the truth.”  Jack has even convinced himself that his lies are the truth.  Not me. So Jack Batchelor has the unmitigated gall to repeat his scare tactic statements again at this meeting.  Attempting to convince Dane Besneatte to provide him his third vote to continue this folly of a $28.5 million project which we were told by the one company which bid on it would come in at quite a bit less, Batchelor again stated that if the people are foolish enough to reject this activated sludge project at the polls in rolling back rates by either referendum or initiative, that “the State will come in, take over our sewage treatment plant, and do it any way.”  Really, Jack?

(We, in Crescent City were told the same thing…… “if we don’t raise rates, the State will come in and take over our wastewater treatment plant and raise the rates anyways.”)  

Now I know that you could take the brains of all three of those other councilmen sitting on the dais with the mayor, combine them, and you still wouldn’t have a whole lot to work with but give me a break.  Do you really need me to give you the specific retort that even the Dodo Bird should have been able to ask?  When and where has the State Water Quality Control Board ever taken over a city’s treatment plant and done this?  Not that I would put it past this pansy patsy putrescent piece of pusillanimous potentate known as the mayor to contact the water board himself and ask them to do just that, but the fact of the matter is the State has no more ability to take over treatment plants than it has to run its educational system.  Our schools have been out of compliance for ten years, the State could have taken them over after five, and yet we are still muddling along.  Why?  Because there are so many of them failing for one thing. I know that most of you have never looked at an agenda for a State Water Board meeting.  On it, they list all of the out of compliance systems within their region they are going to address at their current meeting.  I have seen lists which go on for pages.  What did they do in Clear Lake when the system didn’t meet the requirements of the law?  The State refused to allow any more connections.  The State never threatened to take the system over and probably eventually fined the operators while doing nothing more.

(In Crescent City, I believe this would also apply.  The State would simply refuse to allow any more connections.  Keep in mind that in 2007, there were under 3800 sewer connections.  In 2012, there were approximately 4500.  We were told that the $43.8 million expansion would add about 1,000 connections.  Seems ludicrous that we would only get 1,000 more connections for that amount of money.)

Once again Batchelor lied about no additional growth occurring in Dixon without this project.  Once again, not one person on the dais spoke up.  We currently use 1.3 million gallons per day of our allowed capacity of 1.9 million gallons.  The 1.9 million is allowed under the current cease and desist order.  Yet Batchelor is attempting to scare people with this patently false bogeyman.  Guess what, Jack?  Many of us don’t want growth, any growth, and many more don’t want your idea of growth which is “stack and pack” housing next to a Jackhole train station.

THESE ARE THE FIGURES FOR CRESCENT CITY:

2007                                                                    2010

CURRENT CAPACITY                    AFTER CONSTRUCTION   % INCREASE IN CAPACITY

DRY SEASON –        1.8 MGD                     3.5 MGD                                        194%                   

PEAK SEASON –      4.0 MGD                     8.0 MGD                                        200%

NOW, PERHAPS, YOU CAN UNDERSTAND WHY SO MANY MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC WERE JUMPING UP AND DOWN WHEN THE CITY ANNOUNCED THAT EXPANSION WAS ONLY 11.8%!  WE’RE STILL WONDERING HOW THEY ARRIVED AT THAT FIGURE?@#!?&!

AND WITH ALL THIS GREAT INFRASTRUCTURE PUT INTO PLACE, WHERE ARE THE JOBS?  I DON’T MIND PLANNED GROWTH, BUT WITH IT SHOULD COME BUSINESSES, INDUSTRY AND JOBS.

Jack doesn’t care about costs because they are minor to him, an elitist, arrogant tyrant. At least I can say Dane Besneatte is listening and thinking.  Dane realizes that as soon as the rates are increased, the referendum to stop the increase will begin collecting signatures.  When the referendum is successful, it will be placed for a vote on the November ballot.  

THERE ARE SEVERAL WAYS TO STOP A RATE INCREASE:  1.) PROP 218 PROTEST- COLLECT 50% + 1 (OF THE RATEPAYERS) SIGNATURES AND THE RATE INCREASE CANNOT GO INTO EFFECT. 2.)  REFERENDUM,  OR  3.) INITIATIVE = BALLOT MEASURE.

Dixon is a sick little town, thanks to the likes of the Courvilles and Batchelors, and their blind supporters such as the McCluskeys, Crosses, and other Rot-ary amoeba.  Now we have the Dixon Positive Action nonsense.  We are business unfriendly.  We go after those who criticize our government.  We make you pay.  This town would be a true gem if those in charge would just go away. You want to know what to do?  You send them a loud message.  We have to wait a month to collect signatures.  I have asked repeatedly for volunteers to help the Dixon chapter which will organize this undertaking. 

REALIZE THAT IF WE HAD 10 MORE VOLUNTEERS IN CRESCENT CITY, WE WOULD HAVE DEFEATED THE WATER RATE INCREASE.   9 OUT OF 10 PEOPLE WERE SIGNING THE PROTESTS.

I want to make this as quick and painless as possible, at least for those who don’t want to pay for another useless project which l be the gateway to something far more costly. The fact is we are not polluting anything.  Rather than a council who will stand up and say “NO!!” emphatically to the State when they have proof, we have a council who wants to “collaborate” with the enemy, an enemy which they will join and become through their own deformation.  What is so difficult about saying “No”?  Larry Simmons told the council that they “were like a Caterpillar tractor going straight ahead” no matter what the public said because they refuse to listen.  They refuse to listen to the people who submitted over 2100 protests. 

SOUNDS LIKE CRESCENT CITY, WE SUBMITTED OVER 2200 PROTESTS ON THE WATER RATE INCREASE AND OVER 900 WERE DISCOUNTED.

The mayor argued this figure’s accuracy and Besneatte continues to believe that two thirds didn’t protest because they wanted this project and the increase.  We didn’t get to the other 3000 parcel owners because the Dixon Chapter is a small organization.  Why do you think Batchelor doesn’t want to put things on the ballot such as this or his “priority development” Agenda 21 nonsense? We are tired of your intractability, Mr. Mayor.  Maybe this is your life experience in how to run a bureaucracy.  The citizens of Dixon are not your cows to milk or sheep to fleece. You will learn that shortly …

Neither are the ratepayers of Crescent City/Del Norte County cash cows.