Welcome and a good morning afternoon to you all. Let’s see, today is Wednesday, March 22nd, 2017. Corrected the wrong date on the previous posting (ie Monday, not Tuesday – recent power failures have messed with all my house powered clocks and telephones!)
GOOD NEWS FOR YOU VIEWERS
You won’t have to endure a video production of Monday’s LDPCSD Monthly board meeting – Yippie! (Wondering what you’ve done right to avoid such audio/visual torture?) Actually the meeting was pretty straight forward and according to the agenda. Both Board President Danny Johnson and Director Jim Sult were absent so VP Dan Hankemeier presided. The audience outnumbered CSD representatives 7:5 – wow!
Wes Barton opened with a Public Comment regarding the recent audit statements which he generally characterized as “garbage”. Wes spoke of what appeared to be incorrect capitalization figures and that the accruals were off between $185,000 – $300,000. The Board did approve both GM KAMPA proposed policies yet there were assurances that the one regarding public information responses by the district would not interfere with the current process of how Wes Barton makes his monthly reports. Actually I didn’t think that one was going to pass as it appeared headed for referral to the entire board at the next meeting until, as Director Emery Ross pointed out, Wes Barton voiced he was not concerned about the policy being used against him (Wes) in a negative way (to prevent how he’s been double checking financial matters for years).
I was/am skeptical (due to everything else that has transpired since Octoer 2014) and voiced polite concern (NOTE: with no evidence of “Ugly Pill” consumption or “under the influence”of same during the entire meeting!) that the policy could perhaps later be used to thwart or stall public requests for time sensitive information. I was able to confirm that we are not “out of compliance” with any law but the CSDA award for transparency was desired. I certainly hope I am wrong that the policy will be “misused” in the future. VP Hankemeier even advised Wes to contact him if such did happen. Naturally I will keep all the recordings so if there is a later problem with the process we can go back for a detailed analysis of what was said at the meeting, but again, hope I am just “twice shy”.
Speaking of saving recorded information – I am currently working on a new backup system so I too will benefit from some time off from the traditional blah blah blah meeting video reports – you know something? Just the “raw” recordings from that short Monday meeting were over 6GB. Such storage space really adds up over time.
“OH BY THE WAY….”
Some storm yesterday huh? I was driving to Modesto to pick up another external hard drive (8TB this time) when it “jumped up” with all the “bells and whistles” of a good old Midwestern tornado storm with rain, thunder/lightning; high winds, rapid temperature change and hail – then 10 miles down the road a beautiful spring day with patches of bright blue sky – ahhh changeable foothill weather ahead – never boring. I stopped to check on a guy in a truck on the side of the road who was OK but confirmed he had just heard tornado watch warnings were in affect for the area. Wonderful day for a quick trip to Modesto!
Yup a lot of rushing around yesterday in some angry weather to return a same day mail delivered hard drive that was not the correct one – in either SIZE OR CONFIGURATION! (isn’t that frustrating – taking the time to make sure you are ordering the right thing then waiting days for it to arrive and when it does discovering it is OUTRAGEOUSLY the wrong item and paying more for something less?), driving to Modesto to return the wrong one and pick up the right one – LAST ONE IN STOCK incidentally so it could not be held indefinitely, quick turn around and headed back to Lake Don Pedro meandering through weather related traffic, then making it home only to discover the power was out again. Oh well, sometimes things just have to wait – but there’s always a good reason and sometimes even a benefit – although usually not appreciated at the time of the inconvenience.
My best to you and yours, Lew
