The Sun is Shining!

The sun is shining today, and contrary to the belief of some residents of the East Coast, California is welcoming spring.  The flowering plum trees have their not lavender but not quite purple blossoms out; the willows in the creeks are beginning to leaf out, making their silhouettes look like a green mist; the deciduous oak trees have their little green leaves out, as do the sycamores.  This year because it is so dry, the creek has already closed the sand bar before it reaches the ocean, which means a very limited supply of water for the community which is dependent on the creek’s aquifer for water, but that has nothing to do with spring!  The bulbs are up, or coming so, and the flowers should be quite beautiful. 

More good news on the home front, an excellent long-time SLO County journalist has started an online newsletter, SLOSense.com, to discuss the local political scene.  It can also be accessed through Facebook.  It is really needed in our county because we are the last place on the California Coast that the developers are lusting over to make into still another asphalt parking lot.  And the local Chamber of Commerce exerts an undue influence on what is printed. 

 We have had a politically difficult situation here in our county when one of our more liberal, rather than right-wing, County Supervisors announced that he and his Legislative Assistant were having an affair and he was divorcing his wife of sometime.  The legal arm of the County Counsel’s Office has exonerated them from absolutely no wrong doing as far as using any county funds, sending any inappropriate e-mails, etc., using county time or equipment. But that exoneration has not stopped the local right-wingers from taking out after him during the local Board of Supervisors meetings in a concerted effort.  Although I hate repeating what one of the agitators said during a public meeting, it is only by repeating it that the magnitude of the problem becomes apparent.  He wanted to know if the Assistant had been hired to be a prostitute and a whore.  The Public Comment period of the Board had become a real cesspool of comment on that issue.  It had already become a looney-bin on another issue.

Our county has a policy of Smart Growth.  That is, put the growth which we know will take place where there are sufficient resources, both natural and human-made, to sustain the growth without burdening the rest of the populace with having to suffer the consequences.  When I was in office, I was a great proponent of Smart Growth because it seemed to me to be a reasonable policy to have.  In the State, it was proposed by the Local Government Commission, comprised of locally elected officials  state-wide at their annual meetings at the Ahwanee Hotel in Yosemite.  Thus, known as the Ahwanee Principals. 

Much to my surprise this year, some 8-10 years after I first heard of Smart Growth, I find that the United Nations has what is called Agenda 21, which proposes somewhat the same thing.  This Agenda 21 has some people in our county absolutely bonkers over our Smart Growth policies.  They apparently think the UN is going to swoop in with their black helicopters and steal our “Private Property Rights”.  And some members of our Board apparently agree with them! 

We also have a local organization, Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business (COLAB), which supports this opposition to both Smart Growth and Agenda 21.  I have found it quite interesting that there is very little in the way of Labor, more private property rights (pro-development) owners of ag land, and a whole lot of Business.  They have been here in this county for many years, coming and going with the political winds, and have surfaced again.  And COLAB is a proponent of doing away with Smart Growth.

The other more liberal Supervisor has been working some three years on a proposal for the county in cooperation with local NGOs to create a homeless shelter on land that the county already owns.  There has been a task force meeting during this time that has been open to the public and has encouraged public input to insure that the public’s concerns were all taken care of.  All of a sudden, after the majority of the Board of Supervisors became right-wing, the local right-wing business people decided to jam the process.  I know someone who has been attending the task force meetings, and her comments about the jamming just about follow the text book on how to jam a process.  Complain that they weren’t included, that no one listened to them, that….  The jamming so frustrated the Supervisor that he lashed out at the jammer.  The local media took out after the Supervisor rather than the jammer!!

Thus, with the sun shining, the advent of SLOSense.com, spring beginning to spring, things may be looking up in this county.  Of course, we could use some more rain.  Never satisfied, I guess.