Category: City Reports

Highlights from the City Council Retreat

heidi08 City Reports March 23, 2009

Hundreds came to the shoulder-to-shoulder town hall meeting with George Miller Saturday, but only tens showed up for the council retreat later that afternoon. Beavers were mentioned at neither, sadly. There were massive cameras and reporters at the first, and only the Gazette at the non-recorded second. Can you guess which spent a greater percentage of time on questions, incorporated greater audience feedback and created a friendlier atmosphere?

Lets be clear: my interest in local politics was generated by exactly two furry creatures in Alhambra Creek about two years ago. There are big historic fights in Martinez that I know nothing about. Still, advocating for these animals has required me to be at fairly close quarters with our city council, to hear their thought processes, listen to their promises, and see how they weighed decisions. If any single issue has forced you to do that at one time or another, you know the result of this discomforting intimacy. Here we are, almost at anniversary of the subcommittee report being delivered, still without a vote on whether the beavers can stay. When I proposed planting to replace the alarming vegetation loss caused by the flood plain scraping, I was told to let “nature take its course”. Staring at the faces who made the decision to install a sheetpile wall in front of what they knew was another sheetpile wall I saw that they were simply relieved that their real commitment had been honored. Each was completely unburdened by wondering how vastly flood conditions would have improved for the entire town if they had voted to invest that half a million dollars somewhere else, say the creek banks by the adult school.

I say this to preface on my remarks. The no-retreat retreat started with city manager Phil Vince outlining the plans for using measure H money by rebuilding the Rankin Park Pool. This was responded to by Lara Delaney who wondered if it might not make more sense to use that money to rebuild the pool somewhere more centrally located in Martinez. Mark Ross reminded her that the bond measure specifically talked about rebuilding the existing pool, and she said again that it didn’t make much sense to go all the way across town for a pool. The city manager even added that the weather was warmer south of highway 4. Mayor Schroder cautioned them away from these speculations saying that the voters might feel this was a “bait and switch” technique to get money approved for one project and use it for another.

All in all, it took 20 minutes for our elected representatives to remind each other that they had an obligation to implement the will of the voters. Whew. Time well spent.

Janet Kennedy raised the issue of a city wide disaster plan, and talked about our failure to provide one. Then it was off to the blue-light special of the day:

A Redevelopment Agency for Downtown Martinez.

Phil Vince began this talk by saying that Martinez had enormous jewels to offer, the open space, the Marina, the train station, but that no city’s general fund should be forced to carry the burden of managing these things on its own. It was time for Martinez to form an RDA. He had worked most recently in Moraga which wasn’t “right” for an RDA because it was just “open space on either side and a few shopping centers in the middle” and did not “have enough blight”. (Never mind that Martinez is equally landlocked by open space, a refinery, and the marina. Apparently we have enough of the blight that Moraga lacked. Interestingly, Moraga didn’t have enough, but apparently Lafayette did.) He said that this time around the city would invest funds and effort to educate residents about the benefits of an RDA.

40,000 of our tax dollars set aside to teach us what we should think.

The fact that this had been a divisive issue in the past for Martinez was raised, stressing the need for unity. The city manager reassured that this education money would outline the pros and cons of a Redevelopment agency and then simply let the voters decide. Janet Kennedy said that she had never seen an RDA that didn’t improve the city she was in, including San Pablo where they used it to fund a casino. Mark Ross said that if you didn’t have your own RDA on board your funds were siphoned into other projects in the county. Given the fact that 40,000 dollars was going to be spent to teach us pros and cons, someone from the audience asked the council to list any “cons” they could think of.

They could not name one. .

After I raised my concerns about it (which are in yesterday’s gazette and hopefully wednesday’s record) Lara Delaney argued heatedly that an RDA is just a tool, and that it can be used for whatever the city needs, and if there is a powerful tool that can help the city, she was going to use it.

Here’s my thought about the “tool” argument. An RDA is powerful tool, yes. So is a chain saw. It is not the kind of tool you hand to just anybody and promise they can use for the next 40 years. We are in an economic crisis which means that any RDA is going to be poised to siphon a greater portion of any recovered city wealth until 2050. Think of it this way, with the economy down each of our homes have lost value, maybe 30% of their value. That wealth will come back when the dust settles, but forming an RDA now means that any taxes on that recovery will belong to the RDA, not the schools, not the fire department, not the general fund. Yes cities can be responsible and create “pass-throughs” to protect that money, but how good has our city been at saying “no” to big money interests and protecting the needs of residents?

(Consider the Albatross).

It’s time to ask ourselves three important questions:

Is this the right tool?

Is this the right time?

And is this the right council ?

Come Saturday Morning…

heidi08 City Reports, Educational March 20, 2009

Not sure what to do after that last cup of coffee? You might want to join your fellow Martinez-ites for a town hall meeting with Congressman Miller. He’ll be at city hall from 9:30 to 10:30. He’s coming to talk about the economy and stabilization measures. I have said before that his last town hall meeting was the most uplifting political event I ever attended until November 7, 2007, so its probably worth the trek.

I posted this back in May of last year when I met an aide of his at the farmer’s market.

Now for my day’s best news. In the midst of talking and explaining about the beavers we met a nice mom with a magical little daughter who explained that she was an aide for Congressman Miller. Not only was she a huge beaver fan, so were her co-workers, and they had watched the videos in the office. I can’t tell you how delighted that makes this particular beaver advocate. I respect the congressman enormously, am consistently impressed with his position on the issues, and up until November 7, 2007 his town hall meeting at Martinez City Hall was the most uplifting political event I’d ever attended. Now he’s got stiff competition. Always in the back of my mind, I wondered whether he might be interested in the beavers who’d settled into the creek in his home town.

It turns out our beavers have friends in some very high places.

9:30 is not so very much later than the beavers go to bed, and I thought maybe the congressman might enjoy seeing something up a creek that wasn’t the economy, so I dropped his aide a note and suggested a guided tour. She actually thought he might be interested and asked him! Breath was held, would the entire economy benefit from the “beaver bump? Sadly it turns out government work is fairly taxing right now and his schedule couldn’t accommodate a beaver visit. Next time, congressman!

(I told her the beavers were big fans and would miss him.)

Anyway, there will be a hot bed of activity tomorrow. First Miller to talk about our economic woes, and at the same time a city council “retreat” where they will make plans for the next two years and say admiring things to each other. Rumor is a redevelopment agency will be top on their list. Apparently the mayor wants the concept to be “shovel ready” for whenever the economy improves.

If the council is “shovel-ready” with an RDA, I dare say there’s a host of Martinez residents who are “Pitchfork-ready” in response. A no-retreat, retreat I guess.

Rainbow on Castro Street

heidi08 City Reports, Environmental March 3, 2009

Water. Water. Water. Last night I got out of my car and stepped onto the soggy street and waded upon the soggy curb over the river that is Castro Street in the rain, and I thought, SOMEday we’re going to wash away and the beavers are going to have to start a nonprofit to take care of US.

Castro street is a well known tributary for flood waters. Often times people misunderstand that the creek spills over its bank as far upstream as shell or the adult school and, having once broken the bonds of custom and habit, decides on a whim to use Castro as a more direct route to the sea. The beavers came and built their dam at the location where the water is trying to get back into the creek after having second thoughts. They have nothing to do with flooding in Martinez.

It is not Castor but Castro that brings the great flood, and even then it is just a vehicle for transgressions caused much higher up. I will say that every year someone comes to pump out our street drains, unsuccessfully. And every year the hapless contender gives up in disgust saying, “Huh, that thing’s collapsed” and drives away. Perhaps he makes a note of it somewhere in a large bureaucratic pile of papers, or perhaps he just keeps his counsel (so we keep our council) but no one ever fixes it, because its an infrastructure problem larger than Martinez is willing to roll up its pants legs and deal with.

All this to say that Castro Street this morning was the recipient of the loveliest heavenly concession, a huge iridescent rainbow ending in the hills where the Osprey sleeps in the summer. Maybe its a sign, like God gave to Noah, that there will be no more flooding. Or maybe its just a real nice thank you card.

(The Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet Eleven)

Then Ishtar arrived. She lifted up the necklace of great jewels that her father, Anu, had created to please her and said, “Heavenly gods, as surely as this jewelled necklace hangs upon my neck, I will never forget these days of the great flood.

The Internet’s Broken

heidi08 Beaver News, City Reports, In the News March 2, 2009

Weekends are usually slow traffic here at the Worth A Dam Cafe. We usually get about 150 hits on saturday, less than half of our weekday traffic. Its possible that’s because on the weekend people have time to go look at beavers for themselves and don’t need to read my writing about them. It’s possible that beaver fans have such rich and exciting lives there’s no time to look at the webpage. Or its possible that beavers are really only interesting enough to read about at work, where the competition is less stiff and distracting.

(Which isn’t a complaint, because sometimes I appreciate the break.) But yesterday we had more like 600 visits with 2800 page views. Think about that for a minute. That’s a lot of readers on a rainy Saturday. Why the sudden bump? Were the children of California all suddenly writing reports on beavers at the same time? Is the economy depressing people so badly that only beavers can cheer them up? Or is it news of our Mom sighting that got passed from person to person and merited a visit?

I’m going to guess the latter. Mom’s got star power. She’s recognizable and central to the action. Heck, she even has a beauty mark.

Whatever the reason let me take this opportunity to greet new readers, and welcome back old ones. As we’re heading into Spring there’s going to be a lot more beaver activity to see and participate in, and the beavers need your support more than ever. In addition to the Worth A Dam Sierra Club presentation, we’ll be working with the city engineer, the ESA students and an interested eagle-scout candidate to work on tree planting. Next Month there’s Earth Day to look forward to, and after that the environmental fair, the creek seeker’s express and our beaver seminar.Your interest and enthusiasm continue to make all the difference.

Still, since there’s high traffic at the moment, I’m going to re-post my sheetpile comments to the council, because Martinez foot the bill for this, and its now a prominent feature of the beavers lives and our lives when we go watch them. The photos researched for this presentation inspired a UC Professor to contact me about using it to teach a course in Historic Photographs, but only 213 people from Martinez have seen it. Even though it was discussed in the LA Times, the Gazette never kept its promise to write about it. None of our fair-weather beaver media friends came to do a story on it, and there was never a sense of shock or outrage that the city spent vast sums of money on a project that improved the life of a single property owner.

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=rQefxDQemaA]

The moral of the story is that your city lied about the need for this sheetpile, and rumor is now that the restaurant Bertola’s will be closing because the rent was raised unreasonably high to force them out. Steadier minds than mine have suspected that there were plans all along for that property.

The Sheetpile secured them.

Read the Signs

heidi08 Beaver News, City Reports January 9, 2009

Political Columnist Lisa Vorderbrueggan of the Contra Costa Times has been a tough sell on the Martinez beavers. She had a sporting good time making fun of our silly Martinez struggles over a bunch of rodents — saying we scared our city manager away, and spent far too much money in the process. In fact she had such delight working on one-liners about our exorbitant beaver bank account, that she never bothered to check whether the money figures were actually accurate. (Well, in this way she had plenty of company.) During the sheet-pile-palooza she was apparently terrified that Worth A Dam was purchasing thermonuclear devices and for some reason my explanation of the simple household non-contact thermometer never appeared in her column.

However, I think maybe her horse-race following, backroom deal-sniffing, seen-it-all steely heart was softened by the presidential beaver video which she truly enjoyed. Our beavers approaching their “candidates” affected her hardened spirit almost like the ghost of Christmas past visiting Scrooge. She came back from the election a changed woman. Here is what she has to say about the beavers for 2009.

Warning! Step away from the beavers!

Fearing a collapse, Martinez spent $360,000 in 2008 to install metal sheet pilings between a retaining wall and an adjacent beaver dam in Alhambra Creek.

It was the latest chapter in an angst-filled saga over what to do with beavers who set up housekeeping in the same creek where the city spent $20 million on flood control prevention.

But nervous downtown businessowners and beaver fans have declared an uneasy truce after several years of rodent occupation and no major flooding has occurred as a result of their presence.

Still, expect the big-toothed, procreating, national media hounds will remain the city’s third rail of politics in 2009.

Downtown property owners and beaver activists remain watchful.

Meanwhile, the original beaver pair has been as busy as, well, beavers.

Their family has expanded from two to eight critters and they have as built as many as four dams.

With a cessation of hostilities, the city plans this year to put up interpretive signs and direct visitors to the beaver pond.

A big sign that reads “Beavers This Way” sounds so much nicer than “Welcome to Martinez: Former Home of John Muir and That Cute but Evicted Beaver Family.”

Lisa! Welcome aboard! We missed you! What size t-shirt do you wear and we’ll send one right over?

This is as good a time as any to let everyone know that Worth A Dam recently worked with Epona environmental consulting to apply for a wildlife education grant that will pay for three interpretive signs at the dam and lodge sites. We have a designer at the ready, the lovely photos by Cheryl Reynolds, and my endless copy.

I expect great things.