It lacks the seasonal charm of “Toys for Tots”, or the spiritual intrigue of “Jews for Jesus”, but Rick Parker’s problem solving rhetoric in Sunday’s Gazette does have a certain clarity of purpose. He writes that if the emergency bank stabilization project was an effort to get rid of the beavers the city could have
shot them for the cost of a bullet instead of spending over 500,000 dollars.
Really? Shooting all 8 beavers with one bullet? That sounds like a fairly complicated proposal to me involving a billiards expert and maybe Cirque de Soleil. He goes on to say that there were “two engineering reports, one paid for by the property owner and one paid for by the city.” Actually there were three reports, the city demanded a second accounting when the first’ wasn’t alarming enough.
“Both basically said the same thing: the wall had moved in the previous six months more than 8 inches which explains the haste on the part of the city to effect repairs.“
Ahhhh, did you catch that meme-change? “The wall had moved“. Actually no report said the wall had moved, but that the supporting soil had moved away from the wall. With Worth A Dam’s historic evidence entirely refuting the bank bamboozle even Rick Parker knows there is no relevance to the soil argument. Maybe he had a heartfelt conversation with a council member, or city staff. Maybe he went to lunch with a beleaguered property owner, or watched the video, but Parker knows that the meme has to change, and quickly.
Otherwise, instead of looking like the city of Martinez wasted 500,000 dollars on a bunch of rodents, it will just look like they wasted it.
Beavers seen this weekend include dad, kits, and yearlings, just in time to be Thankful. Cheryl photographed this image of the lodge work on the west bank. Looks like the beavers have some recreational plans for the holidays. Yes, that is a putter.
