Gridley councilmen clash over ‘good ol' boys'

August 02, 2011 11:40:00 PM
By Ryan McCarthy/Appeal-Democrat

Nastiness, bickering and accusations have cost Gridley a multimillion dollar biofuels project — whose 17-year history the Butte County grand jury recounted in a critical report — a city councilman says.

"This project is moving without the city," Dan Boeger said.

He also questioned Councilman Dave Garner's assertion that a "good ol' boy network" in the city had steamrolled efforts by some residents to uncover what was happening with the biofuels plan.

"I don't like the comments about the old boy network," Boeger said. "It served the city of Gridley for many years."

The network made possible schools, a museum and the Gridley Memorial Hospital, Boeger said at the Monday study session of the City Council to draft responses to the grand jury report.

Garner said the people of Gridley built the community, not Boeger and his friends.

"The facts are not on his side," Garner said of Boeger and the biofuels saga. "The grand jury was pretty clear — an awful lot of money has wound up in very few hands."

Council members will meet again at 5:30 p.m. Monday in City Hall to take up the city's response to the grand jury report.

The Butte County grand jury recounted a $5.1 million effort that the panel said benefited very few people in Gridley, produced no biofuels project and over nine years paid $964,949 to former Councilman Tom Sanford.

Sanford, an attorney, takes issue with report and has said that volunteers whom he can only guess are "doing the best job they can" serve on the grand jury.

Gridley resident Dan Lofing, who has been critical of the project, said Tuesday he doesn't believe a biofuels project was ever going to be built in the city.

Gridley was used as an intestine, he said, with federal grant money from the U.S. Department of Energy going in the front and exiting the back door to individuals and groups.

Lofing said the "good ol' boy network" includes some good people but that members can't act like they're in Hazzard County, the rural setting for the TV series "The Dukes of Hazzard."

"Boss Hogg isn't going to run the city," he said.

Former Butte County Supervisor Curt Josiassen appeared at the study session and described himself as a "recovering politician" who represented the area for 12 years.

Josiassen said the disposal of rice straw that the biofuels project could have used is a long-standing issue and thanked the city.

"Gridley stuck its neck out," he said. "The city took it on for a whole group who are not in the city."




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