Bratton…last throwback(?)…Greensite on Wharf Lawsuit Settlement: Lessons Learned Steinbruner…AT&T landlines a thing of the past? Tall housing in Watsonville?. Hayes… Bad things moving… Patton…Protection of farmlands… Matlock…Sucking up a fait accompli for self-preservation… Eagan…Subconscious Comics and Deep Cover re-run. Webmistress…pick of the week. Quotes….”Lawsuits”
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DATELINE March 6, 2024
More archive diving, but I believe Bruce will be back as soon as the next column!
//Gunilla//
DATELINE April 2013
LA BAHIA…SETTING IT STRAIGHT. Speaking of which, too many half-read Sentinel letter writers either forget, or never knew that the real reason we don’t have a fine new hotel La Bahia Conference Center instead of Charlie Canfield’s purposely neglected and deteriorating historical hovel is because…Barry Swenson wouldn’t adhere to The Coastal Commission’s regulations. (Like one floor too high) those are the same regulations that have preserved the coast of California for decades….and hopefully will continue to do so.
| Guantanamo prison |
THE SIZE OF GUANTANAMO & NYC continued. I’m still amazed at the size of Guantamo…here’s this.. Manhattan Island is 23 Square miles, making Guantanamo twice the size of New York City. (Repeating)…JUST LEARNING. According to Jill Lepore’s excellent torture article “The Dark Ages” in the March 18 New Yorker.. Guantanamo occupies forty-five square miles on the Southeastern end of Cuba. She says it isn’t part of Cuba, and it isn’t part of the United States”. I’ll just add, in comparison, San Quentin Prison is 427 acres and Guantanamo is one tenth the size of all of Santa Cruz County!!!.
HISTORICAL QUESTION. Mike Hess asks, At Melrose and Morrissey there are matching concrete posts on each corner that look as though they had some sort of light on top at one time. There are also some further down Morrissey (I think at the very end). I was told by the couple who live on the SE corner that they were once the entrance to a grand estate that included horse track. Any historical info on these???….thanks. He’s got me, any info out there???
[BACK TO THE CURRENT TIMELINE – I read that the new La Bahia is set to open its doors late this year… -Webmistress]
Bruce will be back with movie reviews as soon as he’s had a chance to write more!
March 4th 2024
Wharf Lawsuit Settlement: Lessons Learned
With the signing of the Settlement Agreement between the City of Santa Cruz and Don’t Morph the Wharf! it is time to take stock and consider lessons learned. For Don’t Morph the Wharf! that is easy: we won. We learned that with the wind of public opinion at our back, a willingness to do the hard work necessary with attention to detail and no hyperbole, with dedicated public interest attorneys, and a learned judge, we were able to save the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf from the most egregious of the makeovers sought by city staff.
And the city? One wonders what lessons if any have been learned. The cost involved should give pause for thought. I’m not privy to what the city spent on defending its inadequate Environmental Impact Report and unpopular Wharf Master Plan, but I can estimate. I know what our lawyers received in payment from the city since the city lost the case. I know how often the city’s consulting CEQA attorney retained from Sacramento was at the public hearings and in court in person in addition to the city’s local attorneys. I read all the documents, including court briefs and rebuttals prepared by the city’s consulting attorney. I imagine a rough cost estimate is somewhere between half and three-quarters of a million dollars of public monies spent. Or squandered, depending on your point of view.
Given comments I’ve overheard from staff, the story the city is telling itself probably goes something like this: this is sue-happy Santa Cruz; someone will always find something to sue about; some people just don’t like change plus an assortment of other rationalizations. This inability to take stock and shift course is unfortunate since it probably means a similar miscalculation and waste of public monies will happen again since it has happened before.
In 2015 the city was sued by a different community group, Save Our Big Trees. The basis for the lawsuit was the city’s effort to change its Heritage Tree Ordinance to increase options for heritage tree removal and remove entire species from protection without any environmental review, which their attorneys said was not needed. The city lost that case at the Appellate level with the amount paid out probably in the same ballpark as the current Don’t Morph the Wharf v. City of Santa Cruz case. Just an estimate, I don’t know the exact amount. The same consulting attorney and the same Environmental consultants were involved in 2015 as in 2020 and 2023.
If you keep losing and keep blaming your opponents for your situation without any self-reflection, it fits the adage of “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
The fix is simple, and it goes like this: if you are considering major changes to a city landmark such as the Wharf, first seek public input and assess where the community sentiment lies. Don’t spend a million bucks on a staff-generated Plan even if it is from a grant (it’s all public money) and then run it by hand-selected “stakeholders” to get the results that fit the agenda. Be prepared to change course if the public overwhelmingly opposes the Plan. Prepare a thorough Environmental Impact Report that assesses the impacts with validity and adjust accordingly. Hold meaningful public hearings.
The next step with the Wharf involves specific projects outlined in the Wharf Master Plan minus the removed Landmark building at the end and the removed lowered westside walkway. During the lengthy public hearings over the past year, the public was told repeatedly that there would be ample opportunity to comment on and change specific projects as they came up for public review. The city has already applied for and been approved for a $7 million dollar grant from the California Coastal Conservancy with a matching $1.6 million from city sources. Here’s the rub. The first project involves moving the entry kiosks further down the Wharf to where the car parking and stores begin, including widening the Wharf with stainless steel pilings. It appears no-one has considered the impact of this relocation on cars exiting the Wharf on busy days. If exiting cars stack up they will block parked cars wishing to back out and join the exiting line. Currently any stacking occurs on the long Wharf entry where there are no cars parked so there is no conflict. We raised this as an issue in the EIR process, but it went unanswered.
The second point of concern is that the city’s $1.6 million contribution is slated to be paid back in part by raising Wharf parking fees and re-striping the current parking bays to create more of them aka narrowing them. My hunch is that most people would be solidly against narrowing any of the Wharf parking bays and against raising the parking fees.
The required public hearings on these projects will test whether any lessons from past mistakes have been learned.
| Gillian Greensite is a long time local activist, a member of Save Our Big Trees and the Santa Cruz chapter of IDA, International Dark Sky Association http://darksky.org Plus she’s an avid ocean swimmer, hiker and lover of all things wild. |
AT&T REPS SAID ANY MONEY SPENT ON MAINTAINING COPPER LANDLINES IS A WASTE
The Board of Supervisors chamber was full and brimming last Tuesday with people demanding AT&T keep copper landline telephone service intact because it is the only reliable communication in power outages and disasters. AT&T made a big case that such service is archaic, and “any money spent to maintain it is a waste of money.”
They claimed California is the last state they are applying for removal of Carrier of Last Resort, and assured the Board that everything went well in other states when their service was dropped. However, when Supervisors asked for a plan of what AT&T plans to do if the CPUC were to grant their application request to drop service, there was no real answer.
“You are the one driving this situation, by the fact that you submitted the application to the CPUC.” said Supervisor Zach Friend, “and you ask us to trust you when you have given us no reason to do so and offer no plan.”
It was perhaps the first time I have completely agreed with Supervisor Friend, and felt grateful for his testimony.
Chairman Justin Cummings want ed to know if the service were handed off to another smaller company, would their pricing be regulated? NO. The CPUC regulates AT&T but not smaller carriers. “Pricing for the service would be handled by supply and demand.” said the rep.
Listen to the presentation here.
Many members of the public spoke about this during Item #5 Public Comment, and more spoke after the AT&T presentation in Item #7…click on the agenda item to go to that area of the recording.
WATSONVILLE CITY COUNCIL WILL CONSIDER CLOSING ONE AIRPORT RUNWAY TO ALLOW TALL HOUSING PROJECT ADJACENT
One of the people who testified during public comment before the County Board of Supervisors at their recent meeting announced that on March 26, the Watsonville City Council will consider closing down one of the runways at the City-owned Watsonville Airport.
At issue is a potential new housing development near the airport that could be made taller if the cross-wind runway were closed.
[Watsonville Eyes Closing Crosswind Runway – AVweb]
Even though the cross-wind runway handles a small number of the 60,000 annual flights into and out of the airport, it is critical to maintain it for those weather conditions that do sometimes occur…..especially for use in disasters.
The March 26 Council agenda is not yet posted, but watch for it here:
City Council Agendas & Minutes | Watsonville
CITY OF SANTA CRUZ GIFTS JOBY $500,000 IN PUBLIC MONEY WHEN THEY ARE BROKE??
The Santa Cruz City Council approved what is in essence a gift of public funds to Joby Aviation, hoping to attract 250 local jobs but with no requirement that the workers live in Santa Cruz and no priority given to existing Santa Cruz residents when hiring.
The City will forgive the loan if Joby proves it has created 250 jobs between now and the year 2038. The money would not pay salaries, but rather be used to purchase equipment that the City would own if Joby pulls out of the agreement early.
City Economic Development Director Bonnie Lipscomb explained that Joby is a good investment, and gifting them half a million dollars will encourage the company to stay in Santa Cruz. Councilmember Brunner wanted to know why the City would choose Joby as an investment over other locally-owned businesses? Because of their size, being within the City’s top 15 sources of property tax with the company’s purchase of the former Plantronics building ($24 million in 2023) in Harvey West, and an anticipated $4,000/year per capita sales tax revenue from the future new 250 full-time workers there.
Councilmember Brown questioned the reported $45,300/year average City wage that Joby will be required to meet. No comment from Ms. Lipscomb. Also, what guarantee would there be that the new employees would work remotely and not live in Santa Cruz? Ms. Lipscomb said the agreement specifies the worker must actually be on-site a minimum of three days/week, and Joby would not agree to give any preference in hiring to existing Santa Cruz residents.
Ms. Lipscomb reminded the Council that the City has similarly partnered with two other local businesses, Harmony Foods (still operating at 2200 Delaware Avenue in Santa Cruz) and Zero Motorcycles (no longer in Santa Cruz, having moved to Scotts Valley) to promote economic well-being for the City.
She said the $500,000 would come from the City’s Economic Development Trust Fund that the Council created 12 years ago when the Redevelopment Agency dissolved.
One member of the public audience presented some excellent points to question the wisdom and reality of this half-million dollar gift of public money to Joby, citing possible company buy-outs and relocation as a reality, and pointed out that this agreement is NOT a “loan” but a gift at a time when the City claims it is broke. (see minute 2:23:00) Staff did not address that.
The sole voice of fiscal reason was Councilmember Sandy Brown, who voted NO, with no prejudice against Joby Aviation, but for the reason of her reservation at gifting public taxpayer money.
Listen in to the discussion of this Item #13 on the February 27, 2024 Santa Cruz City Council meeting (at about minute 1:49:00)
[View Meeting – OnBase Agenda Online]
Will we be seeing Joby air taxis in Santa Cruz?
SWENSON CONTINUES EROSION AND CONTAMINATION OF APTOS CREEK
Recent rains have caused more stormwater drainage of areas within the Aptos Village Project construction site to dump contaminated and sediment-laden stormwater into Aptos Creek as a result of the new drain pipe Swenson crews installed on the streambank.
Although perfunctory attempts were added after the last big storm, the stream of surface area runoff and sediment from the failed energy dissipation work Swenson did in Aptos Village County Park is still happening.
Take a look at the photos below and if this bothers you, please contact California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife and State Waterboard about what appears to be a violation of a streambank alteration on Aptos Creek. California Dept. of Fish & Wildlife: Lt. Matthew Shanley <matthew.shanley@wildlife.ca.gov
Regional Water Quality Control Board: Ms. Leah Lemoine <leah.lemoine@waterboards.ca.gov>
All that sediment is coming from the failed streambank alteration at the stormwater pipe outfall.
APTOS VILLAGE SIGNAL SAFETY UPGRADES AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE, NOT SWENSON?
The February 27 County Board of Supervisor consent agenda Item #41 described a bid for the Aptos Area Adaptive Traffic Control System that will install traffic light coordination devices on Soquel Drive from State Park Drive to Trout Gulch Road. The engineer’s estimate is $488,000, and the bid will be awarded March 28.
But wait a minute! The Dept. of Public Works Director Matt Machado told the public that the traffic signal coordination was taken care of when the County installed the new railroad crossing and signals at Trout Gulch Road and Aptos Creek Road. And then, the Measure D money paid to slurry seal the paving after the County paid to install all the lane markings for Swenson’s new Parade Street connector to the Aptos Village Project and Soquel Drive.
And now, the paving will be torn up at all five traffic signals???
Yes.
Project Applicant: Santa Cruz County Department of Public Works
Project Description: The project involves installation of Adaptive Traffic Signal Systems at five traffic signalintersections along Soquel Drive in the Aptos area. Work includes installing cables, conductors, ethernetdevices, modems, mounting hardware, and fabric innerduct at each of the five traffic signals. All devices for theAdaptive System will be installed within existing traffic signal cabinets, conduit runs, and on to existing signalmast arms. The system is designed to improve the flow of traffic by tracking vehicle delay and approach queuesto better optimize flow of traffic through a network of existing traffic signals and involves no expansion of theexisting use. Agency Approving Project: County of Santa CruzSanitation District Contact: Tim Nguyen Telephone No. (831) 454-2371Date Completed: 11/29/2021
Note that completion date….2021?
I wrote Mr. Machado with to find out more. He fielded the questions to Mr. Tim Nguyen. Below are his answers in italics:
Dear Matt,
I was surprised to see the Consent Item #41 on today’s County Board of Supervisor meeting agenda, approving the Aptos Adaptive Traffic Control System Project for bid.
In reviewing the Project maps, I see it will affect all traffic lights at intersections from State Park Drive to Trout Gulch Road. I thought the lights were already synchronized when Aptos Creek Road intersection improvements were completed. There are already cameras at all five intersections.
- The new Rhythm Engineering “In|Sync Adaptive System” cameras will be used for vehicle detection and adaptive system functions. (vehicle/bicycle detection zones, traffic counts, vehicle delays, etc.)
What will this new Project do that is different than what the County said had been done earlier?
- Install In|Sync Adaptive Systems to utilize adaptive system functions through a network of traffic signals, from State Park Drive to Trout Gulch Road.
What is the timeline for the Project?
- Tentative begin construction: May 10, 2024 (70 working days)
The diagrams in the staff report look as though the paving will be torn up. Measure D funds just paid for paving and slurry seal in these areas…how will the Project affect the paving?
- 6″ wide trenches are proposed at the State Park Drive and Spreckels Drive intersections to install new 3″ conduit required for the Adaptive Systems. Restoration of the pavement will be per County standards.
- If the Contractor can install the new wiring within existing signal conduits at these two intersections, then the 6″ wide trenches will not be necessary. (to be determined by Contractor)
Is this work connected with the Aptos Village Project Phase 2, now under construction?
- No
Is Swenson paying for any of this Traffic Control System Project?
Well, notice the crickets when question comes around to Swenson paying. The reported overall cost of the work to date is $736,045, according to the staff report.
I think it is interesting that the project description provided in the February 27 Board consent agenda states the work was completed 11/29/2021. I also find it curious that the County seems to have an extra nearly half a million dollars to do this work that was described as a mitigation to the Aptos Village Project traffic increase, at a time when there is no money to fix potholes on major arterials like Freedom Boulevard…and maybe your street as well.
And the County came to voters with Measure K, crying there is no money for road repair??? Hmmm……
If you have thoughts or questions about this, please contact Matt Machado<matt.machado@santacruzcountyca.gov> , and maybe show up at the Board of Supervisor meeting and publicly ask them about the County’s priorities for road work.
Please let me know what response you receive.
EXPENSIVE RADIO PROJECT WILL LIKELY BRING ANOTHER TAX PROPOSAL TO THE BALLOT
A federal unfunded mandate that all municipalities change radio systems used by emergency responders be changed over to a new digital platform that will be very expensive, may not work very well, and will render scanners useless.
Consent Item #21 on the County Board of Supervisor consent agenda unveiled the County’s proposal to move forward with the Next Generation P25 Radio System, sending out Requests for Proposals. The consultant recommendations for the new system anticipate it will cost over $49 million.
I think you and I both know where this will lead….yet another tax measure on the ballot “for critical unmet needs, fire, emergency response”…let’s see, will pothole repair get added this time. Hmmm….
Take a look at what this could mean for the County’s emergency response communication system:
DOC-2024-158 Authorize the General Services Department to release Request for Proposal for a Next Generation P25 Countywide Radio System, and direct the Information Services Department to return on or before October 8, 2024, with contract(s) for awar
What worries me is that no State agencies, such as CalFire or State Parks is included as a subscriber. I have been told that those agencies will have a different system. But will it be able to mesh with the County’s system?
I don’t have a good feeling about this.
Contact your County Supervisor and find out what they know. I am told that in order for the County and State systems to be interoperable, the handheld radios needed will cost $6,000 each. I am also told by a reliable source that this federal mandate is the result of intense lobbying of the FCC by Motorola.
SOQUEL CREEK WATER DISTRICT BOARD APPROVED $4.5 MILLION ANNUAL OPERATIONAL CONTRACT FOR SEWER WATER TREATMENT FACILITY THAT WILL MOSTLY RUN ON AUTO-PILOT
Last Tuesday, the asleep-at-the-wheel Board of Soquel Creek Water District voted to approve a 10-year contract with Jacobs Engineering consultants that will cost ratepayers $4.5 million annually to operate the PureWater Soquel sewer water treatment facility in Live Oak.
The plant will be staffed Monday-Friday, during business hours. The rest of the time, things will run on auto-pilot, with staff on-call 24/7.
When asked what the most common problem is with operations of these sorts of facilities, the Jacobs consultant replied “the technology”. The consultant assured the Board that by the time the Project becomes operational this November, there should be sufficient staff to operate and maintain the facility because “we are hiring all new people”. But don’t worry, they will all be certified by then.
Hmmmm…..
To save money, the District will be responsible for electricity and chemical costs directly. If the District feels the Jacobs consultant operators are not running the plant efficiently (how would they know?), the District could assume operation…except there is no one on staff that knows how to run the plant.
If the Jacobs crew does not operate the plant at a level of producing and injecting into the aquifer enough treated sewage water to add up to 1500AcreFeet in a year, they could be required to pay $1,500-$4,000 per million gallons.
If the water produced is not within the quality parameters, the plant will be shut down. Will the public know?
I asked that all data regarding problems with water quality and systems production be posted on the District website for public transparency. I pointed out that the Jacob consultant claim that the water will be “very pure” is not accurate because, according to the Final Anti-Degradation Report submitted last March to the Water Board, there will be 1.67mg/L nitrate, 33 mg.L chloride, as well as all the known contaminants, such as DEET, caffeine, sucralose, that cannot be removed, and a host of unknown and unregulated contaminants, such as hormones, radioactive cancer treatment drugs and carcinogenic NDMA that quite likely will not be removed.
Think about it…it the treatment cannot remove all the nitrate, what else is skating through the reverse osmosis membranes?
Pure? I don’t think so.
I thanked the Board for finally explaining how the PureWater Soquel Project annual operational cost could go from the anticipated $2.5 million to $5.5 million, as reported in the recent rate increase study. That detail was never justified during the rate hearings.
I wanted to ask why the complete contract with Jacobs Engineering was not included in the Board packet, but my two minutes was up. I asked for one more minute, since I was the only person in the audience….”NO” said Chair Bruce Jaffee as his fellow Director Tom LaHue shook his head. “If we make exceptions to the rule, it will set a bad precedent.” I tried to just finish my question about how I could find a copy of the contract, but General Manager Ron Duncan raised his voice and told me to sit down and be respectful.
Chair Jaffe said I could send further questions and comments in an e-mail. I have tried doing that but no one ever responds.
I had to leave the room before I puked. This Board is spinning out of control with arrogance that is simply disgusting.
WHERE HAVE ALL THE SWALLOWS GONE?
Since Soquel Creek Water District contractors started working at attaching the treated sewage water pipes to the Laurel Street bridge in Santa Cruz, the Cliff Swallow population nesting activity has declined drastically.
The Santa Cruz Chapter of the Sierra Club wrote an excellent letter to the District Board. I hope you will take time to read it (Correspondence in the March 5, 2024 Board packet, beginning on page 5)
Consider this…..
“…we believe it is incumbent upon the Water District to begin researching appropriate mitigations to address the observed changes in breeding habitat and effects on the cliff swallows displaced from their nesting sites.
Although correspondence dated 10/31/23 with the Project lead states that “The PWS Project elements do not restrict cliff swallows from nesting on the bridge and abundant nesting opportunities on the bridge remain,” our observation (see photo, and that of the Santa Cruz Bird Club, indicates that the current installation of the project’s pipe covers does eliminate access for the location-faithful cliff swallows. Observation indicates a steep drop in swallow nests beneath the Laurel St. bridge since the Pure Water Soquel installation work began, from an annual average of 50 nests to approximately 15 after implementation of the PWS Project.
As it now appears clear that the 2018 EIR did not adequately assess either the project scope or long-term disturbances to the cliff swallows, we are interested in what mitigations are in place for the loss of the cliff swallows’ breeding location, and what future mitigations may be desirable to allow and encourage the return of the displaced population.
(7) the 2018 Project EIR does not include site specific evaluation of the Laurel St. bridge;”
Please write the California Dept. of Fish & Wildlife to ask that the District be held to developing meaningful and enforceable mitigations (as they were required by CEQA law to do but failed to comply), and the State Water Board, who provided Prop 1 grants to fund the Project:
- Email: gwquality.funding@waterboards.ca.gov
Subject Line: Prop 1 Groundwater Grant Program - Phone: (916) 449-5172
Sending a thank you letter to the Sierra Club would also be a great thing to do: Michael Guth<sierraclubsantacruz@gmail.com>
WRITE ONE LETTER. MAKE ONE CALL. ATTEND A PUBLIC MEETING AND ASK QUESTIONS, EXPECTING CLEAR ANSWERS.
MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE THIS WEEK BY JUST DOING SOMETHING.
Cheers,
Becky
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Becky Steinbruner is a 30+ year resident of Aptos. She has fought for water, fire, emergency preparedness, and for road repair. She ran for Second District County Supervisor in 2016 on a shoestring and got nearly 20% of the votes. She ran again in 2020 on a slightly bigger shoestring and got 1/3 of the votes.
Email Becky at KI6TKB@yahoo.com |
Bad Things Moving
We humans move bad things around, and Nature quickly suffers. Now, I am not one of those people that believes that everything humans do is bad for Planet Earth. To the contrary, I have researched and written much about the things we do that are essential to restoring and maintaining Nature. We do lots of good work, we should do a lot more, and things would not be altogether better without people. However, humans propensity to move living things great distances is not one of the good things we do. After recently learning about the cause of the disappearance of certain species of local bumblebees, I have been focusing on the pathogens that humans are transporting around the globe.
Plant Pathogens
We don’t have to explore far to see the signs of human mistakes in the kingdom of plants. In the 1990’s, I drove past Waddell Creek on Santa Cruz’s North Coast and gasped when I saw huge patches of tree skeletons – dead and dying Monterey pine trees succumbing from pine pitch canker (Fusarium circinatum – origin Mexico and/or Eastern US). In the last decade, I’ve been similarly shocked at hillsides of brown leaves from the rapid demise of tanoaks and live oaks due to sudden oak death (Phytophthora ramorum – origin East Asia). These are the most recent and widespread results of human carelessness and greed. Millions upon millions of dead trees are piling up across the world right now due to people vectoring plant disease around the world. Especially with climate change, this is not the right time to be killing trees. Without recalling history, we are doomed to repeat it. We should have learned by now as those recent introduced plant plagues are repeating the devastation of the not-so-distant past. The eastern US lost its dominant forest tree, millions of American chestnuts, to chestnut blight (Cryphonectria parasitica – origin East or Southeast Asia) starting around 1900. A little later, wave after wave of Dutch elm disease (Ophiostoma ulmi 1910 and O. novo-ulmi 1965 – origin Asia) killed millions of elm trees in Europe.
Animal Pathogens
Similarly, human carelessness (and greed) is causing misery and death to many of our wildlife friends. Brucellosis (Brucella ssp. – origin Mediterranean) causes big grazing animals to get sick and sometimes abort their babies. Cattle ranchers worry about the proximity of wild grazing animals that carry the disease. Conservationists are concerned about ranchers wanting to cull wildlife that infect cattle herds. Besides through unregulated hunting, elk, bison, and bighorn sheep populations have probably been depleted through brucellosis and other introduced diseases. This disease also affects humans who become infected through unpasteurized milk or undercooked meat from infected animals.
Another animal disease that humans spread to the detriment of many other species is called chytrid. The type of chytrid (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) has caused serious decline and even extinctions in frogs. This disease spread from African clawed frogs imported into the US for pregnancy tests administered from the 1930s – 1960s: inject urine into the frog’s skin and it made bumps if you were pregnant – easy, accurate….and a complete disaster for the frogs and toads of the New World. In the late 1980’s, I saw the last of the Golden Toads, a beautiful orange-gold species native to a small patch of cloud forest in Costa Rica. Chytrid found its way into even that remote location, as it found its way into many other seemingly unlikely far-away places, killing off millions of beautiful and sometimes narrowly geographically restricted species. Long-term monitoring plots in Costa Rica and elsewhere in the tropics plummeted in diversity and abundance of frogs. The disease also caused the decline of our local California red-legged frog as well as the frightening annihilation of the Sierran yellow-legged frog, both of which have nevertheless survived.
Resistance To … Change or Learning?
My most recent lesson in invasive pathogens was recently with bumblebees. As I engage in restoration and land management across the Central Coast, I recently received notification that the Western bumblebee has disappeared from much of its historic range, and now it is being seriously considered to be listed as threatened or endangered by the State of California. If you pay attention to the flow of national environmental media, you no doubt have heard about the effects of pesticides on pollinators. So, hearing about the local extinction of Western bumblebee, you might wonder how pesticides have affected local bumblebees across the vast areas of parkland and forest where there doesn’t seem to be widespread pesticide application. While we can’t dismiss the danger of pesticides in affecting pollinators, the more likely culprit for the far-ranging disappearance of this local species of bumblebee is Nosema bombi, ‘microsporidia’ – a group of organisms that might be protozoa or fungi. A bunch of these types of organisms infect humans, but the species infecting, and the effects on, humans is ‘an emerging field.’ Meanwhile, that particular species has been a very serious problem for many bumblebees of the United States. How did it get here? The story again….greed and carelessness: you’d think we should know better by now.
The origin of this bumblebee killing plague was Europe. Specifically, upstart profit-motivated companies seeking a market in alternative pollinators took our native bumblebees to Europe for breeding, mixed them with diseased European bumblebees, and then brought the disease back to the USA. In the mid-1990s. Companies are applying to do more of this kind of thing right now.
What’s To Be Done?
Each one of us can make a difference to thwart the greed and ignorance at the root of the ongoing introduction of pathogens to the US. I illustrated a very small percentage of instances: there are hundreds or thousands of other examples, even without addressing the pathogens mainly affecting humans (we are all too familiar with recent difficulties of global Covid spread). If even left-leaning media stories included mention of the possibility that pathogen spread has been weaponized for economic warfare, more politicians might be forced to address these issues, which are, after all, national security concerns. National security concerns get funding when the voting public gets concerned about them.
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Grey Hayes is a fervent speaker for all things wild, and his occupations have included land stewardship with UC Natural Reserves, large-scale monitoring and strategic planning with The Nature Conservancy, professional education with the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, and teaching undergraduates at UC Santa Cruz. Visit his website at: www.greyhayes.net
Email Grey at coastalprairie@aol.com |
SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 2024
#62 / Celebrating The Protection Of Farmland
I recently received the January 2024 edition of “Between the Furrows,” a monthly publication of the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau. An insert in the newsletter highlighted the 27th Annual Agri-Culture Farm Dinner, which was titled, “Celebrating The Protection of Farmland.”
The Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau, actually, has a lot to be proud of where the protection of farmland is concerned. It is fair to say that Santa Cruz County has the strongest farmland protection policies of any county in the state.
In 1978, the people of Santa Cruz County adopted “Measure J,” a referendum measure placed on the ballot by the County Board of Supervisors. The purpose of Measure J was to guide the future growth of the county, and here is what it says about farmland protection:
17.01.03 (a)
It shall be the policy of Santa Cruz County that prime agricultural lands and lands which are economically productive when used for agriculture shall be preserved for agricultural use.
Now, this policy seems both straightforward (which it is) and rather unprepossessing. Duh! Right? The people of Santa Cruz County have made it their policy that lands that are economically productive when used for agriculture SHALL be preserved for agricultural use. Like I say, Duh!
In fact, there is no similar policy, adopted by the people, anywhere else in the state of California. This means that agriculture, everywhere else, has to compete against other possible uses for agricultural land. How about a motel? How about a new car dealership? How about some kind of industrial facility? How about a golf course resort? How about a hospital? How about a new residential subdivision? How about….. You get the idea.
Land can be used for just about anything, and those who want to develop the land can often pay more than a farmer can, who has to make the mortgage payments from the sale of strawberries, or brussels sprouts, or some other agricultural crop. Car dealerships can pay more. So can lots of other possible uses. If individual land owners are allowed to pursue their own, individual economic best interest, farmers and farmland lose out.
But not in Santa Cruz County.
Here, if land is economically productive when use for agriculture, then agriculture is the ONLY use that can be approved. Seems pretty simple.
Actually, it’s pretty revolutionary.
Finding a way, politically, to accomplish community objectives is not, often, all that easy to do – in practice, at least. In theory, it’s pretty simple. Let the community figure out what the best use of the lands within the community would be, and then make that the rule. Make that the law. That’s what Santa Cruz County has done, when it comes to prime farmland.
Santa Cruz County looks the way it does today – and has a vital agricultural industry today – ONLY because the people of Santa Cruz County were willing to make some hard choices, back in 1978, and lay down the law. A pretty important accomplishment, actually!
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Gary Patton is a former Santa Cruz County Supervisor (20 years) and an attorney for individuals and community groups on land use and environmental issues. The opinions expressed are Mr. Patton’s. You can read and subscribe to his daily blog at www.gapatton.net
Email Gary at gapatton@mac.com |
Dateline March 4, 2024
SUCKING UP A FAIT ACCOMPLI FOR SELF-PRESERVATION
Kerry Eleveld in a Daily Kos post says Mitch McConnell’s announcement that he will step away from his Senate leadership position in November, “…may seem like a passing of the baton by a physically frail 82-year-old man, but is in truth, a death rattle of the so-called establishment wing of the Republican Party.” McConnell has had several public health occurrences since the concussion suffered in a fall back in 2023, and his stepping down is not totally unexpected, though long overdue. Upon Donald Trump’s winning the presidency, Mitch thought he could control The Don, using him as a tool to pack the Supreme Court with conservative extremists, and pass the 2017 tax cuts to boost the fortunes of America’s wealthiest. Joyfully, the Speaker checked off those goals on his list, but he failed to notice his party was being stolen from him by the MAGA horde, and by 2020 he fully realized that his GOP majority in the Senate needed help from the MAGA base to hold power…to no avail in the end thanks to the Georgia election results. Eleveld believes Mitch misread the tea leaves, convinced that Trump would fade after the January 6 riot, with agreement from Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in their book, ‘Peril.’ Sensing a trend to a party no longer dominated by Trump, McConnell said, “Sucking up to Donald Trump is not a strategy that works.”
Whoops! And who turned out to be one of the biggest sucker-uppers? Why, Moscow Mitch, of course. House Democrats impeached Trump with only seven days left in his term, so Mitch jumps on the bandwagon by delaying the Senate impeachment phase until AFTER January 20, 2021, only to have the White House and Senate then controlled by Democrats, with VP Kamala Harris holding the tie breaker voting cudgel. He never lent a hand to get the country through the Trump nightmare, assuming that semi-sane Republicans would follow the Democratic lead, and as Mitch said to two Kentucky confidants, “The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us.” He was quoted in saying that Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the J6 Insurrection, but never used his influence to convict Trump, and as we know, ended up voting for acquittal. Moving his attention to the 2022 midterm election, the GOP had several opportunities to land seats, with history suggesting that Democrats were doomed to failure. “The only place I can see Trump and me actually at loggerheads would be if he gets behind some clown who clearly can’t win. To have a chance of getting the Senate back, you have to have the most electable candidates possible,” he cautioned. But October 2021 sees Mitch endorsing Georgia’s Herschel Walker, football star, as “the only one who can unite the party, defeat Senator Warnock, and help us take back the Senate,” even after encouraging Walker to take his ball and go home. That election effort ended in a losing GOP campaign alongside other Trump endorsees, picking up not a single seat in the so-called ‘red wave‘ while also losing the open seat effort in Pennsylvania.
So, Trump’s fait accompli in the MAGA takeover of the GOP is nearly done, with his march to the Republican presidential nomination all but sewn up. His ownership of the RNC, ousting Ronna McDaniel, and fighting hard to see his daughter-in-law move into her position eminent. The less Mitch McConnell has led, his followers became less capable of being led; consequently, they are embracing MAGA policy tenets, adopting MAGA tactics, leaving the caucus more ungovernable. Eleveld sums it up with, “When McConnell steps aside later this year, he will leave behind a conference, an institution, and a party in disarray – and he will be complicit in having either actively or passively gutted the integrity of all three.”
Alexander Bolton writes in The Hill, “The race to replace Senate Republican Leader McConnell is laying bare the power struggle between pro-Trump and anti-Trump Republicans in the Senate. GOP lawmakers aligned closely with the former president are urging any candidate to succeed McConnell to embrace Trump. Other Republican senators want McConnell’s successor to keep a healthy distance from the controversial former president.” After the 2020 election, the bitter fallout between Mitch and Donny left the party in an awkward position with tensions between the two still a nagging problem. Trumper Tommy Tuberville, senator of Alabama, wants to elect a vocal Trump supporter, while others see Trump’s 2020 loss being impacted by his inability to get behind strong candidates in the last midterm voting. Senator Mitt Romney sees Trump’s Senate endorsers acting out of fear, or political “self-preservation.” The two leading prospects for Mitch’s replacement, John Thune of South Dakota, and John Cornyn of Texas, have had changeable relationships with Trump over the years, both designated as ‘RINOs‘ by the former president. Cornyn questions Trump’s strength in beating Biden, telling the press, “I think President Trump’s time has passed him by. I don’t think Trump understands that when you run in a general election, you have to appeal to voters beyond your base.”
Robert Reich writes, “He (McConnell) will be remembered as one of the most dangerous politicians in living memory. He helped transform the Republican Party into a cult, worshipping at the altar of authoritarianism. He’s damaged our country in ways that may take a generation to undo. Like Trump, McConnell hasn’t been just a garden-variety bad public official. He’s been a truly awful public official. McConnell has always put party above America. Remember when he said his most important goal as Senate leader was to make Barack Obama a one-term president? The fact he hasn’t always kissed Trump’s backside has infuriated the former furor-in-chief. So who’s worse? It’s a tough call. Trump defaced and defiled the presidency, but no person has done more in recent years to undermine the functioning of the US government than McConnell.” Reich enumerates the ways in which he sees McConnell’s desecrations: 1) Refusal to consider Obama’s Supreme Court choice, Merrick Garland; 2) Rammed through confirmation of Trump’s court choices; 3) Tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, raising government debt; 4) Doing almost everything Vladimir Putin and Trump wanted him to do – hence, ‘Moscow Mitch‘ was born; 5) Blocked bi-partisan background checks for gun sales; 6) Secured a right-wing takeover of the US federal court system, empowering conservatives to shape laws on climate, reproductive rights, voting rights, and other issues affecting millions of citizens. Mitch’s consistent ratings from Kentuckians are low, for sacrificing the state to the GOP agenda. Money for school construction was shifted to emergency funding for Trump’s border wall, and funding for black lung disease to affected coal miners, who after a bus trip to DC to plead for restoration of funds were turned away after sixty-seconds, with his refusal to help. Reich speculates that Ohio Senator and LapDog J.D. Vance will fit the bill to fit into Mitch’s shoes, “being sufficiently young and telegenic enough to hawk authoritarianism to the gullible public, and being so unprincipled and ambitious that he’ll flush democracy down the toilet to promote Trump and himself.”
Florida’s Senator Rick Scott has made no announcement to seek the Senate GOP leadership role, likely remembering his poor showing in a previous attempt to oust McConnell, who gave him a 27-vote-margin trouncing. But Aldous J. Pennyfarthing has made some observations on the Medicare fraudster, and his support for criminal officeholders. “Medicare fraudster and US Senator Rick Scott is doing his bit for the destruction of liberal democracy, claiming that he’d vote insurrectionist, self-described crotch-grabber and judge-described sexual assaulter, business fraud (alleged!), top secret documents thief, and semi-ambulant absurdity Donald Trump – even if Trump is convicted of a crime. Because the only way to halt the raging national crime wave that exists entirely in Republicans’ minds is to elect a criminal to the highest office in the land. The Republican Party, which once swaddled itself in principled opposition to Soviet aggression, has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Vladimir Putin’s vodka- and evil-marinated brain, and all Putin had to do was compromise one debauched reality TV star. Normally, you have to buy a $325 cameo to get Rudy Giuliani to do embarrassing tricks for you, but Putin got his services for free. Watching old-guard Republicans morph into humiliated wads of protoplasm in utter thrall to a Flamin’ Hot Cheeto Demon would be really offing funny if the stakes for Western democracy weren’t so high. In an impromptu interview with CNN’s Manu Raju, Scott said he’d absolutely support Trump as the party’s nominee, even if he’s convicted in one or more of the four felony cases he currently faces. And Scott – who, again, was responsible for one of the worst Medicare frauds in history – is standing by his answer. After all, even if the GOP nominated Nikki Haley, surely Democrats would dredge up something on her that’s equally as picayune as Trump’s deadly attempted coup, 91 felony charges, colossal business fraud judgement, massive defamation/sexual abuse judgement, wholesale betrayal of a domestic ally, and weird series of speeches that sound increasingly like Hitler screaming lunch orders through a glitchy Arby’s drive-thru intercom. ‘I think any of our nominees, they’re going to try to go after for something, so I support Trump,’ Scott bravely intoned. Really? Haley’s pretty awful, but mostly in ways Republicans love. Unless she’s vowing to crack down on rampant Medicare fraud, it’s hard to imagine why Scott would prefer Trump over her. Unless he’s a soulless, craven Jell-O salad, that is.”
Two prominences showed up at the Texas-Mexico border recently, one a concerned and compassionate individual who happens to be the current President of the US, the other a man-child, spouting bizarre rants about migrants in his speech in Eagle Pass, Texas. The blustering former president, Donald Trump, fumed away, saying, “Nobody can explain to me how allowing millions of people from places unknown, from countries unknown, who don’t speak languages. We have languages coming into our country. We have nobody that even speaks those languages. They’re truly foreign languages. Nobody speaks them, and they are pouring into our country, and they’re bringing with them tremendous problems, including medical problems, as you know.” Wow! Let’s put that indecipherable fulmination to rest and divert our attention to a phrase in Amanda Gorman’s poem, ‘What We Carry‘: “Language is a life craft. Yes, language is a life raft,” recently recited on ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,’ with instrumental accompaniment by world-renowned cellist Jan Vogler. Writer and newsman, Dan Rather, was so taken by the performance he wants the words on his t-shirt. The poem appears in Gorman’s book of poems, ‘Call Us What We Carry‘ as she explores the “we” further in her writing, which she calls an “occasional book.” In her poem, ‘Call Us,’ she writes: “We are not me – we are we. Call us what we carry,” from which the book title is derived. Her now well-known poem read at President Biden’s inauguration, ‘The Hill We Climb,’ is the final poem in her printed collection. Kevin Young, in the The New Yorker magazine, writes, “Good poems capture a moment and sustain it. In an era as urgent as ours, many poems strive for timelessness precisely by being timely. Poetry can preserve the fleeting present, encircle the past, and help envision alternative futures. When Amanda Gorman read her poem at the 2021 Inaugural, she became both the inheritor of a long tradition and a herald of something new…As Gorman acknowledged this country’s contested history, and its contemporary tumult, her invocation of the plural pronoun “we” reminded us that, for good or literal ill, our lives are connected. Hers was an invitation to move forward together.” Can ‘we’ do it? ‘We’ have to give it a shot!
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Dale Matlock, a Santa Cruz County resident since 1968, is the former owner of The Print Gallery, a screenprinting establishment. He is an adherent of The George Vermosky school of journalism, and a follower of too many news shows, newspapers, and political publications, and a some-time resident of Moloka’i, Hawaii, U.S.A., serving on the Board of Directors of Kepuhi Beach Resort. Email: cornerspot14@yahoo.com. |
EAGAN’S SUBCONSCIOUS COMICS. View classic inner-view ideas and thoughts with Subconscious Comics a few flips down.
EAGAN’S DEEP COVER. See Eagan’s “Deep Cover” down a few pages. As always, at TimEagan.com you will find his most recent Deep Cover, the latest installment from the archives of Subconscious Comics, and the ever entertaining Eaganblog.
“Lawsuits”
“A lean compromise is better than a fat lawsuit.”
~George Herbert
“A successful lawsuit is the one worn by a policeman.”
~Robert Frost
“Where there is a will there is a lawsuit.”
~Addison Mizner
“Lawsuit abuse is a major contributor to the increased costs of healthcare, goods and services to consumers.”
~Charles W. Pickering
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I have been wondering about this for the last few years…this weird type of color that suddenly appeared on ALL THE CARS!!! This guy went far enough to actually search and figure out what the deal is. I’m relieved it’s not just me! |
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