Where’s Roger?
If you’re a Los Osos resident and/or a Sewer Jihadi (either side) you’ve probably already seen Patrick Klemz’ very interesting March 8, 07 cover story in New Times, “Where is Roger Briggs? Los Osos residents facing water board hearings question the absence of its leader” (They sought him here, they sought him there, they sought him everywhere, that Demned elusive Scarlet Pimpernell!)
Patrick’s article does contain a couple of interesting items. One, of course, is this: “[Bud] Sanford said he sent a packet of allegations and evidence he’d collected to the California Bureau of State Audits in January of 2006. Donna Neville, legal advisor to the watchdog group, said in early March of 2007 that she wouldn’t confirm receipt of the papers and couldn’t disclose details of any ongoing investigations, in compliance with the Whistleblower Act. The water board’s Thomas [Matt? Michael? It's not clear, an unfortunate name confusion that continues to plague anyone involved with the whole Mad Hatter CDO “trial”] said the agency received the packet when PZLDF submitted it as evidence for its defense case prior to the hearings. . . . “ Then goes on to list a whole series of claims, most of which are followed by Klemz’ notation . ..” The water board declined to comment.” (Uh, I’ll say and understandable since a handful of The Los Osos 45 have filed an appeal of their CDOs to the State water board so the whole thing should be considered under litigation from this point forward, so “no comment” makes sense.)
But the questions Mr. Sandford has submitted to this Bureau do raise another interesting question. So long as the RWQCB stayed in the realm of “generalized, elective, municipal, collective, administrative, legislative, voter-approved actions” they didn’t need to stick with “facts” and “evidence” as it pertained to individual people, who, unlike vague general populations, still carry the protections of “rights” under law. Hence, the RWQCB could assert whatever they wanted to assert, base their claims on “common sense,” (Ignore that tainted well over there! Use the test numbers anyway!) or simply claim such and such that “everyone knows,” and so move forward with a collective governmental project to deal with collective wastewater/pollution problems.
Whatever assertions they made could be challenged at the proper time and “common sense” and “everyone knows” has, in the past, been good enough since most judges view the Board as the “experts,” and defer to them, as they defer to “county government” or elected “CSDs” as the duly authorized “authority” and so go along with whatever they’re advocating so long as it’s . . . good enough.
HOWEVER, when it comes to individual rights, property rights, legal issues, rules of evidence, the notion that a person is individually “innocent” until proven guilty of whatever they’re accused of, this whole notion of asserting something may not survive in a “real” court of law.
Which is what has made this whole Torquemada’s Mad Hatter Teaparty & Traveling Beheading CDO Show so misguided and problematic -- those damned laws that individuals can call upon to defend themselves. Like laws pertaining to “evidence.”
To take one example, the RWQCB staff was asked repeatedly, “Do you have any direct evidence that so and so is polluting the waters of the state of California.” Answer: “No.”
But they’re guilty anyway, issued a CDO and dismissed. Off with their heads!
Here’s Klemz again: “Even in Los Osos, many view the 30-year old nitrate debate as pedantic. Common sense indicates that a high-density cluster of septic systems would prove damaging to water quality, so why talk about nitrates? But the case of The Los Osos 45 isn’t another political battle. It’s a legal one, and one based on specifics. As community patience for the nitrate topic continued to erode, water board chairman Jeff Young struck many of these specific reports from the evidence binder of the recent administrative hearings, calling them 'irrelevant.'”
Hence, we have the Chairman hearing cases that could result in people losing their property dismissing “evidence” as “irrelevant.” Quel apt!
And you wonder why some of The Los Osos 45 have appealed their cases to the State Water Board and intend to go into a “real” court of law where “evidence” apparently still remains “relevant?” Where this isn’t an issue of “politics,” but is, as Klemz said, “ . . . a legal one, and one based on specifics.”
On a related issue, Chuck Cesena, Los Osos CSD President has a Viewpoint, “Past Time For A Truce in Los Osos,” The Bay News, March 8, 07 that states, in part, “Two opportunities existed to challenge this mistake [a challenge to the basin plan, i.e. a challenge to how the Prohibition Zone lines were drawn which never did make scientific sense and make even less scientific sense now]. The first was in 1983 when the basin plan was adopted by the regional board. That was not done. The second is within 30 days after the first ACL or CDO enforcement actions.”
Question: Exactly when did/does the ACL or CDO enforcement action clocks kick in? When the RWQCB votes to issue one? Or when the State Water Board gets an appeal and can legally sit on that appeal for about a year? Or after the CDO is appealed to a “real court of law?” WHEN?
The issue becomes relevant since amending the basin plan is really critical on so many levels. However, opening that plan up for a challenge is undoubtedly feared by the RWQCB and the county because it would allow too many people to ask too many questions about how the original lines were drawn and why. So, is the plan to hold the CDOs in limbo until the 218 vote (how do you spell E-L-E-C-T-I-O-N-E-E-R-I-N-G?) and the county moves ahead with a project based on the old PZ plan lines, thereby making a reexamination moot?
That is something everyone in this community needs to be thinking about. County, too. A bad, short-sighted basin plan doesn’t get better floating unexamined in limbo. It just gets worse. And worse will come back to bite everyone on the butt.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Sunday, March 04, 2007
And Now, For Something Completely Different
A friend send along the following from Dick Cavett’s blog. I think he pretty much says it all.
Subject: Dick Cavett: What My Uncle Knew About War
Are you too getting just a little bit fed up with our leader's war?
Isn't everybody? Do you actually know anyone who thinks it's all going to turn
out fine? Except that chubby optimist Dick Cheney, of course, who thinks the
Titanic is still afloat.
And am I alone in finding our leader's behavior at press conferences irritating?
I mean that smirky, frat-boy joking manner he goes into while, far away, people
he dispatched to the desert are having their buttocks shot away. It's worst when
he does that thing of his that the French call making a "moue"; when he pooches
his lips out and thrusts his face forward in a way that seems to say, "Aren't I
right? And don't you adore me?"
As in his case, I was never a soldier, but God knows I wanted to be. Not in
later years when my draft number came up for real, but back in my Nebraska
grade-school days when Jimmy McConnell and Dickie Cavett watched John Wayne in
"Sands of Iwo Jima" at least five times, one of us sneaking the other in free
through the alley exit. Then we went home, got our weapons (high-caliber cap
pistols) and took turns being John Wayne. The alley was Iwo Jima.
Years later I met Big John. It couldn't have been better. He was in full cowboy
drag on an old Western (studio) street and mounted on his great horse Dollar. He
looked exactly as he did in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," and it took my breath
away. I didn't just like him, I loved him. I sorta wished I hadn't liked him
quite as much, so I could have asked him, "Duke, how come not you nor any of
your four strapping sons ever spent one day in the armed services?" ("I'm merely
asking," I might have added to lighten the tone. Or delay the concussion.)
I didn't dodge the draft, and unlike our V.P. I didn't have "a different
agenda." I didn't have to. I had mononucleosis (imagine how the "nuke-you-lur"
president would injure /that/ word in pronunciation) and, my draft board said,
they had way too many guys and nothing was happening, war-wise. Sound
preposterous? And yet there was such a time.
**********
I have a statement: Anybody who /gives/ his life in war is an idiot.
I guess I left off the quotation marks to let the words have their full effect.
They aren't mine, but I'm related to them. They're my Uncle Bill's words, and
his credentials for uttering the remark are a shade better than mine.
He may well have been the sole Marine to have survived driving landing barges on
three bloody invasions in the South Pacific. I asked an old Marine vet once how
rare Bill's survival was. He was gifted of speech: "I'd say survivors of what
your uncle did could probably hold their reunion in a phone booth and still have
room for most of Kate Smith." (We'll pause while youngsters Google.) "My guess
is that your uncle is unique."
Bill said that aside from knowing that any minute was likely to be your last,
the worst part of the job was having to drop the landing barge's front door so
the guys could swarm out onto the beach. Despite the hail of bullets against
that door, he had to drop it, knowing that the front five or six guys would be
killed instantly.
The phrase Bill hated most was "gave his life." That phrase is a favorite of our
windbag politicians; especially, it seems, the dimmer ones who say "Eye-rack."
"Your life isn't given," I remember him saying, "it's brutally ripped away from
you. You're no good to your buddies dead, and when the bullets start pouring in
you don't give a goddamn about God, country, Yale, your loved ones, the last
full measure of devotion or any other of that Legionnaire patriotic crapola. You
just want you and your buddies to see at least one more sunrise."
Bill also served on land and experienced something so god-awful that he thought
he would go mad: "Tom [his best friend] and I were trotting along, firing our
rifles, and I turned to say something to Tom and his head was gone." (Bill had
great difficulty telling this. I guess I felt honored that he had not been able
to speak of it for years.) He said the worst part was that while still holding
the rifle, the body, now a fountain, continued for four or five steps before
falling. He hated to close his eyes at night because that ghastly horror was his
dependable nightly visitor for years — like Macbeth, murdering sleep.
By sheer chance I was out on the sidewalk in front of Bill's house (we lived
next door) when he arrived home from the war. I wasn't even sure it was Bill at
first, he looked so much older.
I blurted, "Hey, Bill, welcome home." He was two feet from me but neither saw
nor heard me. I knew the phrase current then. Bill was "shellshocked." Not the
current "post-traumatic stress disorder" or whatever the P.C.-sounding phrase is
today. For the first six months he was home, he slept in the yard.
You will think less of me for this, but my friend Jim and I, noticing how poor
Bill jumped at sudden sounds, thought a firecracker might be in order. Bill's
training kicked in by reflex. He hit the ground so fast it looked like film with
frames removed. And, lacking the standard-issue shovel, he started digging with
his hands. He never knew who did it. As for Jim and me, I trust that this will
be deducted from our shares in paradise.
Isn't it the excellent combat chronicler Paul Fussell who gets credit for the
phrase "the thousand-mile stare"? It described the look of the haggard soldiers
coming back from their first battle as the eager, fresh-faced kids — which they
had been a few days earlier — filed past them on their way "in." By definition,
both groups were the same age, but there were no young faces in the returning
group. They looked more like fathers than sons.
It amazes me that this bungled war can still be considered controversial. Who
are the 28 percent anyway, who think that George W., the author of this mess,
has "done a heckuva job"?
The other word Bill hated was "sacrifice." Sacrifice is something you give up in
order to get something in return. What good are we getting from this monstrous
error? Cooked up as it was by that infamous group of neocons (accent on last
syllable) who, draft-averse themselves, were willing to inflict on the (largely
unprivileged) youth of this country their crack-brained scheme for causing
democracy to take root and spread like kudzu throughout that bizarre and
ill-understood part of the world, the Middle East.
What /service/ is this great country getting out of all this tragedy, other than
the certainty that historians will ask in disbelief, "Was there no one to stand
up to this overweening president?"
I cringe at the icky, sentimental way the president talks about what we owe to
the people of plucky little Iraq. You'd think we all grew up ending our "Now I
lay me down to sleep…" with "… and please, Lord, be good to Iraq." They detest
us now, along with just about everybody else. Personally, I don't give a damn
what happens to Iraq, and don't think it's worth a single American life. Or any
other kind. Haven't philosophers taught us the immorality of destroying
something of infinite value — like a human life — in order to achieve a
/possible/ good? I guess not.
For weeks the word "cause" has rolled around in my head, attached to an elusive
quote. I found it. It's from Shakespeare's "Henry V" (as distinct, I suppose,
from Paris Hilton's "Henry V") and it's the part where the king, in disguise and
unrecognized, sits at a fire listening to some of his men discuss the next day's
battle and what it means to be fighting in a good cause. One says, "But if the
cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when
all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join together
at the latter day and cry all, `We died at such a place,' … their wives left
poor behind … their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that
die in a battle. … Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter
for the king that led them to it."
http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/28/what-my-uncle-knew-about-war/?ex=1173416400&en=f68e01a4418a0a71&ei=5070&emc=eta1
=
A friend send along the following from Dick Cavett’s blog. I think he pretty much says it all.
Subject: Dick Cavett: What My Uncle Knew About War
Are you too getting just a little bit fed up with our leader's war?
Isn't everybody? Do you actually know anyone who thinks it's all going to turn
out fine? Except that chubby optimist Dick Cheney, of course, who thinks the
Titanic is still afloat.
And am I alone in finding our leader's behavior at press conferences irritating?
I mean that smirky, frat-boy joking manner he goes into while, far away, people
he dispatched to the desert are having their buttocks shot away. It's worst when
he does that thing of his that the French call making a "moue"; when he pooches
his lips out and thrusts his face forward in a way that seems to say, "Aren't I
right? And don't you adore me?"
As in his case, I was never a soldier, but God knows I wanted to be. Not in
later years when my draft number came up for real, but back in my Nebraska
grade-school days when Jimmy McConnell and Dickie Cavett watched John Wayne in
"Sands of Iwo Jima" at least five times, one of us sneaking the other in free
through the alley exit. Then we went home, got our weapons (high-caliber cap
pistols) and took turns being John Wayne. The alley was Iwo Jima.
Years later I met Big John. It couldn't have been better. He was in full cowboy
drag on an old Western (studio) street and mounted on his great horse Dollar. He
looked exactly as he did in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," and it took my breath
away. I didn't just like him, I loved him. I sorta wished I hadn't liked him
quite as much, so I could have asked him, "Duke, how come not you nor any of
your four strapping sons ever spent one day in the armed services?" ("I'm merely
asking," I might have added to lighten the tone. Or delay the concussion.)
I didn't dodge the draft, and unlike our V.P. I didn't have "a different
agenda." I didn't have to. I had mononucleosis (imagine how the "nuke-you-lur"
president would injure /that/ word in pronunciation) and, my draft board said,
they had way too many guys and nothing was happening, war-wise. Sound
preposterous? And yet there was such a time.
**********
I have a statement: Anybody who /gives/ his life in war is an idiot.
I guess I left off the quotation marks to let the words have their full effect.
They aren't mine, but I'm related to them. They're my Uncle Bill's words, and
his credentials for uttering the remark are a shade better than mine.
He may well have been the sole Marine to have survived driving landing barges on
three bloody invasions in the South Pacific. I asked an old Marine vet once how
rare Bill's survival was. He was gifted of speech: "I'd say survivors of what
your uncle did could probably hold their reunion in a phone booth and still have
room for most of Kate Smith." (We'll pause while youngsters Google.) "My guess
is that your uncle is unique."
Bill said that aside from knowing that any minute was likely to be your last,
the worst part of the job was having to drop the landing barge's front door so
the guys could swarm out onto the beach. Despite the hail of bullets against
that door, he had to drop it, knowing that the front five or six guys would be
killed instantly.
The phrase Bill hated most was "gave his life." That phrase is a favorite of our
windbag politicians; especially, it seems, the dimmer ones who say "Eye-rack."
"Your life isn't given," I remember him saying, "it's brutally ripped away from
you. You're no good to your buddies dead, and when the bullets start pouring in
you don't give a goddamn about God, country, Yale, your loved ones, the last
full measure of devotion or any other of that Legionnaire patriotic crapola. You
just want you and your buddies to see at least one more sunrise."
Bill also served on land and experienced something so god-awful that he thought
he would go mad: "Tom [his best friend] and I were trotting along, firing our
rifles, and I turned to say something to Tom and his head was gone." (Bill had
great difficulty telling this. I guess I felt honored that he had not been able
to speak of it for years.) He said the worst part was that while still holding
the rifle, the body, now a fountain, continued for four or five steps before
falling. He hated to close his eyes at night because that ghastly horror was his
dependable nightly visitor for years — like Macbeth, murdering sleep.
By sheer chance I was out on the sidewalk in front of Bill's house (we lived
next door) when he arrived home from the war. I wasn't even sure it was Bill at
first, he looked so much older.
I blurted, "Hey, Bill, welcome home." He was two feet from me but neither saw
nor heard me. I knew the phrase current then. Bill was "shellshocked." Not the
current "post-traumatic stress disorder" or whatever the P.C.-sounding phrase is
today. For the first six months he was home, he slept in the yard.
You will think less of me for this, but my friend Jim and I, noticing how poor
Bill jumped at sudden sounds, thought a firecracker might be in order. Bill's
training kicked in by reflex. He hit the ground so fast it looked like film with
frames removed. And, lacking the standard-issue shovel, he started digging with
his hands. He never knew who did it. As for Jim and me, I trust that this will
be deducted from our shares in paradise.
Isn't it the excellent combat chronicler Paul Fussell who gets credit for the
phrase "the thousand-mile stare"? It described the look of the haggard soldiers
coming back from their first battle as the eager, fresh-faced kids — which they
had been a few days earlier — filed past them on their way "in." By definition,
both groups were the same age, but there were no young faces in the returning
group. They looked more like fathers than sons.
It amazes me that this bungled war can still be considered controversial. Who
are the 28 percent anyway, who think that George W., the author of this mess,
has "done a heckuva job"?
The other word Bill hated was "sacrifice." Sacrifice is something you give up in
order to get something in return. What good are we getting from this monstrous
error? Cooked up as it was by that infamous group of neocons (accent on last
syllable) who, draft-averse themselves, were willing to inflict on the (largely
unprivileged) youth of this country their crack-brained scheme for causing
democracy to take root and spread like kudzu throughout that bizarre and
ill-understood part of the world, the Middle East.
What /service/ is this great country getting out of all this tragedy, other than
the certainty that historians will ask in disbelief, "Was there no one to stand
up to this overweening president?"
I cringe at the icky, sentimental way the president talks about what we owe to
the people of plucky little Iraq. You'd think we all grew up ending our "Now I
lay me down to sleep…" with "… and please, Lord, be good to Iraq." They detest
us now, along with just about everybody else. Personally, I don't give a damn
what happens to Iraq, and don't think it's worth a single American life. Or any
other kind. Haven't philosophers taught us the immorality of destroying
something of infinite value — like a human life — in order to achieve a
/possible/ good? I guess not.
For weeks the word "cause" has rolled around in my head, attached to an elusive
quote. I found it. It's from Shakespeare's "Henry V" (as distinct, I suppose,
from Paris Hilton's "Henry V") and it's the part where the king, in disguise and
unrecognized, sits at a fire listening to some of his men discuss the next day's
battle and what it means to be fighting in a good cause. One says, "But if the
cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when
all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join together
at the latter day and cry all, `We died at such a place,' … their wives left
poor behind … their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that
die in a battle. … Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter
for the king that led them to it."
http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/28/what-my-uncle-knew-about-war/?ex=1173416400&en=f68e01a4418a0a71&ei=5070&emc=eta1
=
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Don't Drink the Water. No, Really. Don't Drink It. There Isn't Any More.
The following is a DRAFT from the planning commission for Los Osos. So, if you haven't already done so, do change out your toilets and showerheads to Lo-Flow, xerescape your yard, and . . . don't' drink the water.
DRAFT
1. Recommend to the Board of Supervisors that Level of Severity III be certified for water supply in the Los Osos groundwater basin
2. The County of San Luis Obispo become the lead agency to implement the following recommendations.
3. That water purveyors continue to immediately implement the measures recommended in the Sea Water Intrusion Assessment.
4. S&T Mutual Water Co. should install meters and adopt an ascending water rate structure as described above.
5. All water purveyors should immediately adopt an ascending water rate structure as described in the RCS.
6. All water purveyors should adopt mandatory retrofit measures that will reduce water demand by 15% 30% by the year 2010 compared to 2001 usage.
7. Best management practices for agricultural water use shall be encouraged.
8. Secure supplemental water supplies in sufficient quantity, when combined with conservation measures, to meet demand at projected buildout.
7. The County adopt an ordinance that prohibits new subdivisions that result in the net increase in water usage from the basin.
8. Adopt an ordinance to institute water conservation requirements for parcels outside of water purveyor service areas that mirror the efforts undertaken by purveyors within their service areas.
9. Adopt an ordinance requiring all water purveyors with 5 or more connections to meter individual connection water use.
10. Reduce the build out figure for Los Osos in the Estero Area plan from 28,000 to 19,713.
11. A temporary moratorium be instituted for all new development that results in a net increase in water use from the basin until overall basin water use is reduced by at least 600 AFY over 2001 data.
The following is a DRAFT from the planning commission for Los Osos. So, if you haven't already done so, do change out your toilets and showerheads to Lo-Flow, xerescape your yard, and . . . don't' drink the water.
DRAFT
1. Recommend to the Board of Supervisors that Level of Severity III be certified for water supply in the Los Osos groundwater basin
2. The County of San Luis Obispo become the lead agency to implement the following recommendations.
3. That water purveyors continue to immediately implement the measures recommended in the Sea Water Intrusion Assessment.
4. S&T Mutual Water Co. should install meters and adopt an ascending water rate structure as described above.
5. All water purveyors should immediately adopt an ascending water rate structure as described in the RCS.
6. All water purveyors should adopt mandatory retrofit measures that will reduce water demand by 15% 30% by the year 2010 compared to 2001 usage.
7. Best management practices for agricultural water use shall be encouraged.
8. Secure supplemental water supplies in sufficient quantity, when combined with conservation measures, to meet demand at projected buildout.
7. The County adopt an ordinance that prohibits new subdivisions that result in the net increase in water usage from the basin.
8. Adopt an ordinance to institute water conservation requirements for parcels outside of water purveyor service areas that mirror the efforts undertaken by purveyors within their service areas.
9. Adopt an ordinance requiring all water purveyors with 5 or more connections to meter individual connection water use.
10. Reduce the build out figure for Los Osos in the Estero Area plan from 28,000 to 19,713.
11. A temporary moratorium be instituted for all new development that results in a net increase in water use from the basin until overall basin water use is reduced by at least 600 AFY over 2001 data.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Hey, Where Was Everybody, part Duh!
Last night, at the little white schoolhouse in the park in Los Osos, Maria Kelly and Lynette Tornatsky hosted county representatives to answer some questions concerning the proposition 218 vote for the wastewater project. About 25 people showed up, even though there had been a little notice in the County Roundup section of the Tribune.
When I had mentioned in a previous blog that Paavo Ogren would be the guest speaker at the PZLDF meeting and only a handful of people showed up (about 16? 17? 18?) one "anonymous" wag noted on the comment section of this blog that the low turn out was because EVERYONE hates PZLDF and so he/she would wait to see how huge the turn-out was for last night's meeting, which to him/her would "prove" that EVERYONE loves whatever "group" he/she thinks Maria and Lynette represent. The only thing I could think of on reading that comment was, "How high school. No, how JUNIOR high school."
Sixteen to twenty five out of 15,000. Last night a member of the audience strongly urged the CSD to invite Paavo to come give his powerfpoint presentation (first given at Bruce Gibson's regular Los Osos meetings) since the CSD meetings are televised and a great many people watch the TV, so the best way, besides the various county brochures which can't possibly go into too great a detail or else they'd end up the size of phone books, would be a more complete presentation on the telly.
Meanwhile, Paavo noted that the very large list of questions gathered by Maria and Lynette would be posted on the county's sewer web page along with the answers. Their blogsite is: www.slocounty.ca.gov/PW/LOWWP Paavo said the Q & A's would probably be finished and posted in a few weeks.
A lot of questions concerning the 218 vote are still up in the air, so if you have questions, post them at the website and hopefully you'll get answers as this process continues.
BBQ & Raffles, And More, Sunday March 18, noon - 6 pm. At the Community Center.
A reminder, there'll be a benfit for the Citizens For Clean Water- PZLDF -- i.e. The Los Osos 45 who have been given CDOs--to help raise money for their legal appeal to the State Water Board and a "real" court of law. You can support your friends and neighbors who have been targeted and pointlessly and repeatedly hammered for a full year by the RWQCB by buying a BBQ /raffle ticket. Cost: $10.00, kids menu and take-out available. For more info, call Laurie at 528-8408.
FLIM FLIM FLIM
This weekend kicks off the SLO Film Festival, from the 1 - 11th in various venues around town. Great event, great chance to see some wonderful films, there's various workshops you can attend and, of course, the big blowout at the end. For further info, go to www.slofilmfest.org And maybe think about volunteering next year. It's a great program.
Last night, at the little white schoolhouse in the park in Los Osos, Maria Kelly and Lynette Tornatsky hosted county representatives to answer some questions concerning the proposition 218 vote for the wastewater project. About 25 people showed up, even though there had been a little notice in the County Roundup section of the Tribune.
When I had mentioned in a previous blog that Paavo Ogren would be the guest speaker at the PZLDF meeting and only a handful of people showed up (about 16? 17? 18?) one "anonymous" wag noted on the comment section of this blog that the low turn out was because EVERYONE hates PZLDF and so he/she would wait to see how huge the turn-out was for last night's meeting, which to him/her would "prove" that EVERYONE loves whatever "group" he/she thinks Maria and Lynette represent. The only thing I could think of on reading that comment was, "How high school. No, how JUNIOR high school."
Sixteen to twenty five out of 15,000. Last night a member of the audience strongly urged the CSD to invite Paavo to come give his powerfpoint presentation (first given at Bruce Gibson's regular Los Osos meetings) since the CSD meetings are televised and a great many people watch the TV, so the best way, besides the various county brochures which can't possibly go into too great a detail or else they'd end up the size of phone books, would be a more complete presentation on the telly.
Meanwhile, Paavo noted that the very large list of questions gathered by Maria and Lynette would be posted on the county's sewer web page along with the answers. Their blogsite is: www.slocounty.ca.gov/PW/LOWWP Paavo said the Q & A's would probably be finished and posted in a few weeks.
A lot of questions concerning the 218 vote are still up in the air, so if you have questions, post them at the website and hopefully you'll get answers as this process continues.
BBQ & Raffles, And More, Sunday March 18, noon - 6 pm. At the Community Center.
A reminder, there'll be a benfit for the Citizens For Clean Water- PZLDF -- i.e. The Los Osos 45 who have been given CDOs--to help raise money for their legal appeal to the State Water Board and a "real" court of law. You can support your friends and neighbors who have been targeted and pointlessly and repeatedly hammered for a full year by the RWQCB by buying a BBQ /raffle ticket. Cost: $10.00, kids menu and take-out available. For more info, call Laurie at 528-8408.
FLIM FLIM FLIM
This weekend kicks off the SLO Film Festival, from the 1 - 11th in various venues around town. Great event, great chance to see some wonderful films, there's various workshops you can attend and, of course, the big blowout at the end. For further info, go to www.slofilmfest.org And maybe think about volunteering next year. It's a great program.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Calhoun’s Cannons, The Bay News, Morro Bay, Ca for Feb 28, 07
Park It.
A couple of years ago the county Grand Jury issued a report on the often lamentable condition of our public parks. The parks division budget has been flat-lined for ages while demand for services and population and visitors have increased dramatically. The result is too few parks overburdened and falling behind in maintenance often resulting in conditions that range from merely shabby to dangerous.
To help remedy the situation, a Blue Ribbon Task Force of twelve community leaders from various disciplines came together to study the problem and now have issued a task force report which contains various suggestions for improving our parks.
The Board of Supervisors now has the opportunity to implement the findings, ignore the report, or hold public hearings to get further input on the matter and proceed accordingly.
To date, the biggest concern to hit the papers on the report is its recommendation that a separate county parks department be created and fully funded. Right now the parks department is fitted in under the General Services Department and the concern is that while tucked into General Services, the department is being treated like a red-haired step child. Naturally, that suggestion is hotly denied by Duane Leib, head of General Services, who points out that setting up a separate parks department would cost more since many services would necessarily have to be duplicated. And as for arguing that parks is getting somehow overlooked, Leib is quoted in the Tribune as saying, “I have carefully allowed parks to operate on their own agenda and have not restricted or interfered with their growth and improvement. He added that Jenny [Pete, head of the Parks division] has "always enjoyed "unfiltered access" to the Board of Supervisors.”
So there the matter sits until the BOS acts. In the meantime, the people of this county need to be thinking about some additional questions: If creating a whole new separate department would be too expensive, could the Parks Department get more bang for their buck if they hired a full time volunteer coordinator to set up an aggressively run program of community outreach to enlist the aid of volunteers willing to help in actively improving and even increasing park facilities?
As just one example, consider Off Leash Dog Parks. A few short years ago there were zero dog parks in the county. Now, thanks to Parks head Pete Jenny’s active support in partnering with volunteer groups, there are now four official fenced, properly run (by volunteers), very popular and heavily used Off Leash Dog Parks offering recreation opportunities to all in the county, with more in the works. From zero to four is an expansion and creation of NEW park facilities for very little cost to the taxpayer – all the result of actively joining public/private resources.
But it wasn’t an easy task because too often citizens wishing to create new recreational opportunities face a bewildering maze of overburdened staff, bureaucratic hurdles, the intractable stone wall of political Turf Wars, administrative indifference, or unnecessary legal entanglements, all of which could be lessened by a knowledgeable full time staff person whose sole job would be to help create and support such projects, actively seek grants to fund them and focus on ways cities, the county, the state AND private citizens could all combine forces to create these new recreation areas.
That would be one relatively easy fix. But the bigger question must rest with the community: Just how much do you value your parks? And how much are each of you willing to pay to make sure those resources are not only kept usable but expanded to meet the growing population?
It is a cruel irony of California land prices that when you can’t afford to buy park land is exactly when you need to buy park land because when you CAN afford to buy it, it’s too late, it’s all gone. So that’s the rapidly closing window of opportunity this county has before it: Fully fund both parks acquisition, fund the necessary services needed to maintain and improve the acquisitions, and get creative about finding new ways of partnering to get more bang from each buck. Or, lose it all and have to answer our grandchildren when they ask us, “Why did you turn a blind eye to a future that was not yours to squander?”
Park It.
A couple of years ago the county Grand Jury issued a report on the often lamentable condition of our public parks. The parks division budget has been flat-lined for ages while demand for services and population and visitors have increased dramatically. The result is too few parks overburdened and falling behind in maintenance often resulting in conditions that range from merely shabby to dangerous.
To help remedy the situation, a Blue Ribbon Task Force of twelve community leaders from various disciplines came together to study the problem and now have issued a task force report which contains various suggestions for improving our parks.
The Board of Supervisors now has the opportunity to implement the findings, ignore the report, or hold public hearings to get further input on the matter and proceed accordingly.
To date, the biggest concern to hit the papers on the report is its recommendation that a separate county parks department be created and fully funded. Right now the parks department is fitted in under the General Services Department and the concern is that while tucked into General Services, the department is being treated like a red-haired step child. Naturally, that suggestion is hotly denied by Duane Leib, head of General Services, who points out that setting up a separate parks department would cost more since many services would necessarily have to be duplicated. And as for arguing that parks is getting somehow overlooked, Leib is quoted in the Tribune as saying, “I have carefully allowed parks to operate on their own agenda and have not restricted or interfered with their growth and improvement. He added that Jenny [Pete, head of the Parks division] has "always enjoyed "unfiltered access" to the Board of Supervisors.”
So there the matter sits until the BOS acts. In the meantime, the people of this county need to be thinking about some additional questions: If creating a whole new separate department would be too expensive, could the Parks Department get more bang for their buck if they hired a full time volunteer coordinator to set up an aggressively run program of community outreach to enlist the aid of volunteers willing to help in actively improving and even increasing park facilities?
As just one example, consider Off Leash Dog Parks. A few short years ago there were zero dog parks in the county. Now, thanks to Parks head Pete Jenny’s active support in partnering with volunteer groups, there are now four official fenced, properly run (by volunteers), very popular and heavily used Off Leash Dog Parks offering recreation opportunities to all in the county, with more in the works. From zero to four is an expansion and creation of NEW park facilities for very little cost to the taxpayer – all the result of actively joining public/private resources.
But it wasn’t an easy task because too often citizens wishing to create new recreational opportunities face a bewildering maze of overburdened staff, bureaucratic hurdles, the intractable stone wall of political Turf Wars, administrative indifference, or unnecessary legal entanglements, all of which could be lessened by a knowledgeable full time staff person whose sole job would be to help create and support such projects, actively seek grants to fund them and focus on ways cities, the county, the state AND private citizens could all combine forces to create these new recreation areas.
That would be one relatively easy fix. But the bigger question must rest with the community: Just how much do you value your parks? And how much are each of you willing to pay to make sure those resources are not only kept usable but expanded to meet the growing population?
It is a cruel irony of California land prices that when you can’t afford to buy park land is exactly when you need to buy park land because when you CAN afford to buy it, it’s too late, it’s all gone. So that’s the rapidly closing window of opportunity this county has before it: Fully fund both parks acquisition, fund the necessary services needed to maintain and improve the acquisitions, and get creative about finding new ways of partnering to get more bang from each buck. Or, lose it all and have to answer our grandchildren when they ask us, “Why did you turn a blind eye to a future that was not yours to squander?”
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