To the Editor:

I was hoping that after the elections the coverage of the Garberville Sanitary District monthly board meetings would be more informative and factual but I find the July 10, 2012 Redwood Times GSD board meeting coverage inadequate. There were some startling revelations at the meeting that I think are news worthy such as, Redway fertilizer mogul Steve Dazey’s comments that GSD’s projects manager Jennie Short (GSD staff) should be replaced because she has presented alternatives to the GSD board and some of the alternatives do not include the costly annexation of the park land to the district at this time.

I was at the July 2 meeting and Virginia was not, maybe the GSD’s meeting recording was to blame. Who knows?

At the meeting, Kathryn Lobato and the SHCP board repeated over and over the untrue story of SHCP’s “historic service” to the farm and bunkhouse. This fiction was finally put to rest with the facts: GSD has no records for water service to park property other than to Bob McKee’s rental unit and Kathryn Lobato lamented the fact that they never got their secret deal with GSD for water to the park in writing.

Here are a few of the things that were not reported in the article. Someone brought up the Oct. 2004 SHCP board meeting minutes statement by Tim Metz that the park should “tap into Garberville water.” This shows that they didn’t have GSD water at that time.

A member of the public asked why GSD was pursuing this costly annexation of over a thousand acres (the park is 430 of it) before the required Municipal Service review is completed, and before the park board’s General Plan Amendment is completed. Jennie Short explained that Mark Bryant had advised the GSD board that annexation was a condition for funding the water treatment project. Turns out this is not true, either.

The article’s failure to mention other points of view brought up by attendees at this meeting is troubling. Reading the article one would think that only the park board and their supporters were there. By not mentioning the other points of view presented at the meeting in this article Virginia does a disservice to her readers and in my opinion this is a form of censorship.

If you are concerned with the health of our river please attend the July 24 GSD meeting in Garberville at 5 o’clock.

Don Courtemanche

Garberville