Month: April 2008

Beaver advocate and former council member Bill Wainwright wrote a fantastic letter to the editor challenging Lisa P. White’s article on the April 16th meeting. He pointedly asks whether Ms. White attended the same meeting we did. At the time her story broke I wrote White about what I felt was a misleading piece, and she responded that “the real news of that meeting was the fact that the beavers were moving on, and that’s why she lead the story with it.”

Where to begin? Even if it were true that the “beavers were moving on” what exactly would make that the real news? Why have the Martinez beavers even made a single news cycle let alone hundreds? Obviously it can’t be because of the beavers themselves. Otherwise there would be entire sections of the paper dedicated to the Antioch beavers or the Berkeley beavers, maybe even a reporter assigned to the “beaver beat”. The reason the story hit the news at all was the fact that people cared about the beavers, and the public opposed the plan to remove them. The “real story” was always about the enormous civic response.

So if a reporter covering the “real story” attended the April 16th meeting, her coverage would ostensibly be about the public’s response at that meeting. How did people feel about the subcommittee report? How did people react to Ms. Tappel’s testimony? What kind of weight does her remarks about the beavers moving on carry with the people who see them every day? Does it change the balance of interest in the beavers? Will it change the pressure directed towards the city to allow them to stay?

If it were even true that the beavers were leaving, which of course it’s not. The reporter also did nothing to verify this claim. She did not contact people who see the beavers daily or come check for herself. She did not interview the mayor who would benefit most from this rumor. She merely took the words of a self-described environmental scientist and wrote them down as fact. No effort was made to examine Ms. Tappel’s qualifications or learn how she came to her conclusions.

The way I read the article she wrote, Ms. White not only missed the real story of the night, but reported irresponsibly on the fake one.

Mr. Wainwright’s letter is reprinted here with his permission:

Editor:

Your reporter covering the April 16 Martinez City Council beaver report didn’t attend the same meeting we did. We heard a last-minute speaker invited by the Mayor make a thoroughly disorganized, self-serving, error-strewn, and unabashedly offensive surprise presentation. Your reporter led her story with that presentation, giving credence to some of its misrepresentations.

We in the audience also heard a well-prepared, reasoned, thorough and fast-paced Beaver Subcommittee presentation outlining the beavers’ impacts on the downtown environment and mitigation steps to address those of potential harm. That was the meeting’s main event, but only an after-thought for your reporter whose report dignified a maneuver to undercut the Subcommittee’s message: that the beavers could stay.

Only one public speaker out of more than 20 urged the Council to remove the beavers. Your reporter did not report that fact.

We have grown to expect more from your paper. We expect to learn, for instance, that the appearance of the Mayor’s guest came as a surprise to the Subcommittee members, that she repeatedly impugned the Subcommittee’s work, and that he allowed her to filibuster uninterrupted for 25 minutes, deterring many members of the public from expressing themselves because of the late hour.

Bill Wainwright

Thanks Bill for your clarity and for highlighting the real purpose of Ms. Tappel’s appearance. The beavers are lucky to have you on their side.

Heidi P. Perryman, Ph.D.

Nearly all of my life my father worked rotating shifts at the power-plant. Whether he was at Martinez, Oleum, Avon or Pittsburg our family routine was dominated by the 8-4, 4-12 and 12-8 schedule. As a child I liked best when he was on swing shifts, because he had time to play or garden in the mornings and my mother would stay up to have dinner with him when he got home late so the kids could eat pancakes or macaroni. I always knew to be extra quiet when he was on graveyards and sleeping through the day, and did my best not to have singing contests on the stairs or play chase in the hallway while he was in the darkened bedroom. I later married into shiftwork, although they now use 12 hour shifts instead of the familiar eight. I know that families work hard to adapt to these schedules.

Sometimes it seems like America pretends that everyone works a regular schedule of 9-5, of course this couldn’t be less true and Martinez workers are no exception.  While supermarkets and gas stations stay open later than they used to, shift workers can feel invisible to the banks, or the DMV.  It has occurred to me while I visit the beavers in the early morning, that Martinez is heavily represented by workers with rotating shifts. Whether its the refineries, or County hospital, EMT’s or the police and sheriff’s office, we have hundreds of employees that go to sleep in the morning, (or try to) and work weekends.  

Stop by the beaver dam any morning and you will see shift workers on their way home, visiting the beavers as a last stop on a hard night’s work. Whether it’s the jaunty night nurse who walks home past the dam each morning, or the County Connections driver who stops the bus on particularly empty dawns to get out and check on the beavers, or the tired and gruff sheriff who stops with his buddy to look at the lodge before heading back to the station. Our beavers are a perfect natural attraction for shift-work. They are awake when everyone else is asleep, and they certainly know what it means to work nights.

I read a study once about the calming affect of looking at a fish tank.  Apparently when we watching the swimming creatures our heart rates and blood pressure are lowered, our minds enter a perfect wave pattern and we are healthier for those brief moments. This is why you see fish tanks in your doctor’s office or waiting room.  Certainly the same effect could be documented when watching beavers or any of the other natural residents of the pond.  Just yesterday I watched a momma mallard stop and guide 8 fluffy baby ducks up and over the dam.  The sense of calm and “rightness” one has from these encounters is unmistakable.  I would guess that a visit to the dam sends our shift-workers home with a peace and sense of connection.

Maybe Martinez, shiftwork and beavers just belong together.

Heidi P. Perryman, Ph.D.

Reprinted from the Gazette, Letters to the Editor Tuesday April 22

Editor‘s note: The following is a response to Rick Parker’s “Man About Town” op-ed of Sunday, April 20

On Saturday I had the delightful experience of (wo)manning our display table out at the John Muir Earthday/Birthday event.  We had a steady stream of beaver curious folks stopping by the table throughout the event which gave us a prime opportunity to correct the record after the deplorable attempt by Rick Parker to discredit the subcommittee’s report.

One such visitor expressing her outrage equated the City of Martinez with a modern day fiefdom.  After witnessing the level of influence some seem to have over City Hall I too am left asking the question, whose town is it?

But let me get to my point.  I take considerable umbrage with the notion that I need a reality check.  I’ve looked over the figures which supposedly make up this phantom $71,000 expenditure and have to call b s.  It was already mentioned in the public comments section of Wednesday’s meeting that many of the man hours listed are exempt employees; that means zero additional costs.  Rather it becomes a shell game of assigning hours to a specific cost center/project; the annual salary is what it is regardless.  Remove them from the $71,000 and that number is whittled down considerably. 

The rest of Parker’s letter is hyperbole and scare tactics.  Does it really take an airplane pulling a banner behind it listing the numbers of agencies already stepping up to the plate volunteering resources for folks to get the picture that the tax payers of Martinez will not be burdened with items like signage and kiosks?

As for the current outreach efforts to drive business and tourism – yeah I read where we now have a joint effort to attract tourists from Turlock.  Sorry did I miss the notification that the Amphitheater would now be hosting rodeos?

However what I didn’t miss was a group out at the dam Sunday evening taking pictures of the beavers.  A local videographer caught one of the party on tape stating that she’d read about our beavers in the San Francisco Chronicle and decided to drive up from Carmel to see them for herself.  Far be it for me to point out the obvious. 

Lastly, whatever additional flood control fixes are implemented they will be because they are in the best interests of the town and not the beavers.

Linda Meza