Letter from Bill Wattenburg to the Amador County DA

FAX TO:	TODD RIEBE, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, AMADOR COUNTY
	Fax 1-209-223-6304
FROM:	BILL WATTENBURG, citizen of California
February 8, 1999

Todd Riebe
District Attorney
Amador County
Jackson, CA 95642

Subject:

Possible Violations of California Health and Safety codes and Federal EPA regulations by Amador County officials and county airport managers, contractors, and suppliers.

District Attorney Riebe:

As a citizen of the State of California, I am hereby notifying you that I believe that Amador county officials have apparently violated, and been in violation of, the California laws and federal regulations concerning use and removal of underground fuel storage tanks (UST’s). Specifically, it appears possible that county officials and contractors have been using and accepting fuel into UST’s at the county airport since the deadline of Dec 22, 1998 which was the date that all such activity was to cease until UST’s are brought into compliance and meet all regulations.

I hereby request that your office immediately investigate these activities and file appropriate criminal charges against any and all persons who may have participated in the continued use of these UST’s between 22 Dec 1998 and Feb 1, 1999. This investigation and action must include all officials who directed or conspired to continue any illegal activity, who knew any illegal activity was going on but took no official action to stop it, who delivered fuel to these UST’s, or who may have conspired to bless and/or cover up illegal activity by issuing official permits or letters of direction after the fact which is clearly prohibited by the law and recent pronouncements from both the California EPA and federal EPA who refused to grant extensions to or waivers of any sort of the Dec 22, 1998, deadline.

Most citizens and high officials of California now understand that you have employed a very capable and energetic staff of DA investigators and a special environmental prosecutor who have been training for many months at great taxpayer expense to handle just such matters of great environmental insult as the potential crimes that I hereby report to you. This one should be a piece of cake for them because they will not have to go more than a few doors from your office to serve their search warrants, and I would hope they would not have to draw their weapons for fear of encountering violent criminals on the county payroll.

I trust that you are aware that you are obligated to prosecute public officials who break the law with the same vigor that you have prosecuted private citizens. You must equally apply the law to all individuals public or private. You must investigate alleged violations of the law by public officials backed up by readily available official documents, press reports, and witnesses with the same vigor and employing the same means as your office has been to using to support criminal charges against private individuals throughout Amador county. Surely, you will agree that this must include a thorough investigation of the personal lives and personal business activities of all public officials suspected of being involved in violations of environmental laws in Amador County – with public disclosure of all information gathered. A grand jury is most appropriate for indicting public officials who have violated the law and their oaths to uphold the law.

Your investigation must also consider conspiracy, aiding and abetting, or dereliction of duty charges against your own DA investigators and special prosecutor (or yourself) who may have known about and actually discussed these notorious violations with other officials and citizens while they were driving by the airport location of these purported crimes while chasing down and officially flogging private citizens for lessor acts. I believe you can find witnesses who will testify to such conversations. I believe you will find that the contractor hired to do work on the UST’s at the airport after Dec 22, 1998, was not informed for some time that the airport manager employed by the county had no permit or legal right to do such work and that he was induced to violate the law by county officials and/or contractors. Such activity has been called conspiracy by your office.

I believe that failure to carry out your duties as a fair and impartial prosecutor will put the good citizens and taxpayers of Amador County at great risk of having to pay enormous damage judgments to private individuals that you have or are now prosecuting. Equal protection under the law and certain civil rights are guaranteed by both California and federal law.

This fax transmission letter is also a first official notice to you under the Proposition 65 statues that I believe there is notorious evidence, as described above, that Prop 65 statues have been violated with intent by officials of Amador County who can be easily identified by you and that you have 60 days to file appropriate charges against these individuals.

You will notified in the future of any and all possible violations of the Prop 65 statutes and environmental laws by public officials in Amador County. However, I was certain that you would want to know about these documented violations as soon as possible so that you and your investigators could move quickly to stop these purported felonious acts possibly originating right beneath your feet in the Amador County courthouse (Hopefully, your office and status are at least slightly elevated above any county bureaucrats that you prove were involved in or directed these acts).

Copy:
Amador Ledger Dispatch, fax 209-223-1264
San Francisco Chronicle
Wall Street Journal

This page was last modified on Monday, 11-Oct-2004 19:06:20 PDT.

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