SLO County CSD hired embattled firm for water meter work despite protest. Why?
Cambria soon will have 3,500 new and improved water meters with advanced metering — but not without some controversy.
On Jan. 9, the Cambria Community Services District voted to hire Grace Environmental Services to do the meters work for $217,000. Several residents protested the move, however, with district board President Debra Scott even voting against awarding the contract to the Thousand-Oaks-based firm.
Why? The company’s owner has a somewhat embattled history with another local community service district.
In 2023, the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office filed a civil suit against Grace Environmental Services CEO and owner Charles Grace, saying he had violated conflict of interest laws when he helped create the contract that gave him the job as the San Simeon Community Service’s general manager.
The state’s Fair Political Practices Commission called it “inadvertent conflict of interest.”
In a settlement agreement, Grace Environmental Services said it would no longer work for the San Simeon Community Services District, and Grace paid a $75,000 civil penalty.
Flash forward to the Cambria CSD’s latest meeting, and director Harry Farmer noted during the discussion that the company’s Regional Manager Steve Orellana — who he described as “a very skilled, very competent, very hardworking individual” — would be in charge of the project, not Grace.
Even so, some in the audience objected to giving the company the contract, based on its previous North Coast history.
In a letter to the board, Christine Heinrichs urged directors to not hire “a known bad actor, at any price.”
Why did Cambria CSD choose environmental firm?
The Cambria district needed the help for the water meter work, because “staff has been spending two weeks every two-month billing cycle manually reading over 2,700 water meters due to failing radio transmitters,” and the office didn’t have enough water district employees to install the replacements, General Manager Matthew McElhenie said in a staff report included in the district’s Jan. 9 agenda.
“We’re at a point where our systems are failing faster than we can manually read them,” he said.
After sending a request for proposals and getting five bids prior to the deadline, Grace Environmental’s bid was the lowest at $217,000, or $62 per unit.
Other bids ranged from $311,500 to $777,461, with per-unit pricing of from $74.26 to $150.
“Public agencies must select the lowest bidder in public contracting to ensure fairness, transparency and responsible use of taxpayer funds,” McElhenie said in an email to The Tribune. “Laws governing public contracts mandate this to prevent favoritism, corruption or waste and to promote competition among contractors.”
A bond assures that the company’s work will meet the contract’s requirements, he said.
“Bonding is used in public contracting to ensure projects are completed and funds are protected,” he said. “Contractors purchase bonds as guarantees for their work.”
Grace did not respond to a Tribune request for comment.
This story was originally published January 24, 2025 at 9:56 AM.
